The Sixth Sense
by gwe21

Comment:
Hi from the Critique Club,

I like your take on this image, although the emotion of the film doesn't really come across. I like the look on the boy's face, but it doesn't seem to be one of fear or worry. Instead, he looks more like a student waiting for a lesson.

Technically, the sharpness is good and in the right place. The background and composition are both good. As was already said, the lighting is a bit lacking on this shot. The entire left side of the image is underexposed, which wouldn't be bad if that didn't include part of his face. In the future, a reflector or fill light would correct this nicely.

Continuing with lighting, I think this image would have looked better with off-camera lighting; the catch lights in the eyes would be more engaging and the eyes wouldn't look as flat (with that in mind, the catch lights as they exist here are better than no catch lights at all).

Overall, I'd say that this boy would be a great model for you to use in future challenges. This image seems a bit forced for the challenge, and it seems to be reflected in your score. That said, there are many positive elements to this shot. I look forward to seeing your submissions in future challenges.

Regards,
Geoff

14.....Beginning of the End of My Little Girl.
by smardaz

Comment:
Hi from the Critique Club,

Jason, congratulations on your personal best and top 15 finish! It's really evident here that you've learned from your previous entries, and will continue to improve in the future.

The fact that you only have 4 votes under five clearly shows that your image has universal appeal. Your focus is bang-on in exactly the right place, and despite not having any lighting equipment you were able to light the scene well and create appealing catch lights in the eyes. As was already said, you've captured an expression that could evoke any of a thousand emotions.

For the most part, the shadows are good in this image. There was a second light acting partially as a fill light, which creates a distracting secondary "moustache" shadow under the nose. As well, the eyes (especially her right eye) appear a bit over processed. These are both fairly trivial complaints, as you have created an excellent image with few flaws.

Congratulations again! This is a great shot.

Regards,
Geoff

The Bloom Expands...
by 777STAN

Comment:
Hi from the Critique Club,

Second time I got one of your images in the same day!

I was a bit surprised at first to see that this image scored so low. However, considering the challenge it was entered in, I'm presuming that a lot of voters voted it down because they figured it did not meet the challenge. Your explanation above hints at your intention, but one might instead argue that the rose in full bloom is at the peak of its beauty.

With that said, you've done a great job of capturing a beautiful flower. The water droplets are certainly favourable, and you've done a great job of keeping all aspects of the image well exposed.

The tight crop is nice to see detail, but I might have suggested either a tighter crop or more negative green space around the flower. There is a bit of fringing around the edge of the flower, which seems to indicate either oversharpening or aberration. Some might like that fringe, and others might not have noticed. It's only a small nitpick that I wouldn't have voted down on in this case.

You've captured a nice subject; perhaps the voters would have liked a different or more interesting (i.e. better bokeh) background.

Regards,
Geoff

"Many Gather to Race For The Cure"
by 777STAN

Comment:
Hi from the Critique Club,

First of all, I have to agree that you've photographed a great cause here. This is definitely along the lines of the type of image one would expect to see in a newspaper. In a journalistic way, you've captured the mood and substance of the event without identifying anyone that was there; sometimes a facial expression really works, but in this case a nice wide angle works well.

As was mentioned, there is a slight red colour cast to the image (confirmed in Photoshop). This is something that could have been fixed in-camera, since this image doesn't rely too much on timing (I'm assuming you probably could have taken an image very similar to this over the course of at least 5 or 10 minutes). Despite this, you've done a great job of exposing this image; the sky looks great, and there's nothing blown or overly dark.

Agreed, a panorama would probably look much better. Based on the editing circumstances, however, you've done a great job of capturing the moment.

Regards,
Geoff

University of Maryland team takes second place in Solar Decathlon
by JBHale

Comment:
Hi from the Critique Club,

First of all, congratulations on your journalistic eye. Sure, technicals aren't perfect in this image, but your timing and ability to predict the shot are what make this image quite a good one. I really like how you captured the expression of the woman in the front looking back at the trophy. Editing rules prevented you from adjusting this image in post-processing, but I think it would look quite good in a newspaper as a tight vertical crop.

I think petrakka said it quite well:

Originally posted by petrakka: while not the best photo, one of the truly photojournalistic shots in this challenge i think. nice catching the moment.

With that said, I think you've done about as much as you could have for the situation. Based on your aperture, it looks like you were at about 50 mm (assuming you were as wide open as possible for the focal length you were at), so you were probably too far away to use on-board flash. Good foresight to maximize your ISO to get a reasonable shutter speed; noise isn't always ideal, but any more blur would have probably made this a toss away shot. (And in this case, the noise is negligible.)

Good job here. You've done your job by capturing the moment nicely.

Regards,
Geoff

apocalyptic vision
by ursula

Comment:
"The advantage of dodge/burn in a gray soft light layer is that the colours of the original do not change that way, whereas if you dodge/burn directly on the image, they do"

Not to mention that it's easy to undo/remove later.

Great job on this image. Absolutely stunning.

Mahoning Creek
by Shea927

Comment:
Hi from the Critique Club,

I really like the colours in this image; the reds, yellows, and greens of the leaves fit well with the light blue in the sky. As well, the way you composed the river works well by providing oblique lines and allowing for a great reflection of the sky.

As was already mentioned, the trees could probably be brighter in this shot. Of course, the editing ruleset prevented you from lighting the trees without blowing out the sky even more.

Unfortunately, the first thing I noticed in this shot was the railing that blocks the bottom fifth of the image. It is distracting and really contrasts with the reflection in the water. I'd guess this image would have scored higher in the 5s had you composed the image without the rail.

Finally, there are some jpeg artifacts at the top of the trees. At first I thought they were simply unavoidable in such a busy image, but it appears you saved your image at only 50 kilobytes. You could have improved the image quality quite a bit up to the limit of 150 kb, and it's unfortunate that you didn't present this image at the maximum quality allowed for the challenge.

Overall, it's a nice shot of what I'm sure is a beautiful location.

Regards,
Geoff

Edit: spelling.

Message edited by author 2007-11-02 02:29:10.

HIGH & DRY
by eleanor

Comment:
Hi from the Critique Club,

You've captured a beautiful building from a very interesting perspective. I like the composition, although it might have been better if the shadows and the top portion of the other tower weren't in the image. The image might have fared better with an increase in contrast, especially in the sky. For the future, a polarizer does a great job of deepening the blues in skies while maintaining very white clouds.

Alternatively, you could have taken a shot from almost right under the tower, looking up at it and capturing some of the texture of the building.

This is a good image, and a good first submission to DPC. Congratulations, and keep submitting!

Regards,
Geoff

Country Miles
by JawnyRico

Comment:
Hi from the Critique Club,

First of all, congratulations on finishing in the top 15. This is a great image that is well-suited to this particular challenge.

Throughout the image, the colours are excellent. Great contrast between the reds and greens and the yellows and blues. I happen to like the focus on the rocks in front of you; alternatively, you could have focused on the bridge and cropped out some of the tracks. The contrast in the sky is good, although an additional global increase in contrast wouldn't have hurt. The tracks do a good job of pulling the eye into the frame, and the "tunnel" under the bridge does a good job of keeping the eye there.

Overall, it's an interesting image with good composition, nice lines, and great colours. I can't think of much that would improve the image as it exists: perhaps a tighter crop with a person leaning on one of the vertical bridge supports, or even up on top of the bridge. It looks like the kind of place where senior portraits would be taken.

Regards,
Geoff

Far, far away
by Nitin

Comment:
Hi from the Critique Club,

You have good lines and composition here (good placement of the two trees and the horizon), with nice colour contrast between the blue sky and the yellows in the land. The landscape is nice, but there's nothing captivating or compelling in the shot. It might have been nice to get closer to that tree in the bottom left corner and make it a more integral part of the image.

A more interesting sky (sunrise, sunset, storm, etc.) would have been more engaging, which would have probably boosted your score quite a bit.

Overall, this image has good technicals but doesn't captivate me as a viewer.

Regards,
Geoff

Message edited by author 2008-01-08 01:18:13.