~D i s m a l - D r e a m s~
by Juliadavis

Comment:
Very interesting picture. Fantastic composition, really draws the viewer in. And the colour of the baloons is just the perfect finishing touch.

Majestic
by LalliSig

Comment:
Larus? My compliments if it isn't. Bloody Icelanders with their fantastic looking nightscapes :p

Stillness
by Structor

Comment:
Pretty photo. Although I have to say - it strikes me as quite the opposite of stillness - the entire thing's moving! (made me stare at it for longer though)

Cellular Proposal
by JawnyRico

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

Very funny picture - this was one of my favourites in the challenge (partly because it was a nice change from seeing yet another cute kid on phone). Congratulations on the originality.

The lighting is good, the positioning of the models seems just right, and I love the expression on the girl's face. However, as has been commented on before, the background is unnecessarily cluttered. The ring should be in a slightly more central, prominent place, and there's no real reason for the plates on the table and the stuff on the walls - it doesn't add to the picture, it just acts as a distraction. The line of the wall corner going past the guy's head isn't ideal either - really, just a table and a blank piece of wall would have served the purpose much better. Also, I think cutting off the guy's back works well, but I'm not sure about cutting off the girl slightly - since she's the one receiving the proposal, she should possibly be included completely in the picture.

I think the post-processing is very good. The border is just right - it frames and controls the image without dominating it as borders often do. Sepia is a matter of personal taste and doesn't necessarily have universal appeal, but I happen to quite like it.

Anyway, well done on an interesting image.

Any questions - just PM me.

Jelena

So many calls, so little time.
by JLC

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

First of all - welcome to the crazy world of DPC challenges.

As you've already heard from other comments - this image has potential, but there are certain technical issues with it.

Lighting: the flash is bouncing off the wall behind the girl, and it's the first thing you notice about the photo. Try bouncing the flash off the ceiling, or you can set up make-shift studio lighting by making lamp-light bounce off a piece of white cardboard. In these kinds of pictures, the light should never really be pointing directly towards the subject.

Composition: a non-centred composition tends to look more interesting. This could have been accomplished easily in post-processing by cropping off most of the right side (and a little bit of the left to balance it out). Also, I'm not sure if the phones on the bed are prominent enough. Maybe if they were all lined up in front of her?

Post-processing: I would have added a couple of additional editing steps. The whole image seems slightly too red-tinted. This can to an extent be adjusted by using the 'selective colour' function in Photoshop, then playing around with the settings for red. I also would have reduced the saturation slightly (to make the colours normal), increased the contrast a bit, sharpened the image slightly using unsharp mask, and ran it through Neat Image at a low noise reduction setting to get rid of some of the by-products of editing. But then, I'm addicted to Photoshop and have too much time on my hands...

Here's the edit:


Anyway, hope this helps.

PM me if you have any questions.

And most importantly: don't give up! Keep submitting photos, and they'll keep getting better and getter.

Jelena

Message edited by author 2007-04-04 03:28:41.

Irish Eyes
by fencekicker

Comment:
Beautiful portrait! I love the piercing eyes...

The Opera House
by dewdodesign

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

Congratulations on a great image.

It absolutely does meet the challenge - I can see about 40 different light sources just at first glance. The colour of the sky is beautiful, the lighting is lovely, and you've succeeded in capturing an overphotographed cultural icon from an interesting angle. Not sure how much meaningful criticism I can really add here... :)

In terms of the composition: I think it works well, but I'd like to see a variation with a bit more water and a bit less sky. It might be possible to use the rule of thirds so that the first third ends at the line of light on the opera house, and the second third ends slighty below the tips of the highest roofs, in order to make the viewer's eyes move more naturally towards the focus of the shot. Well, maybe...

Oh, and minor point, but: you only submitted a 96kb image. The smaller the file size is, the more detail you lose, so try and get as close to the 150kb as possible.

Anyway, fantastic image, and congratulations on your new personal best!

And keep on snapping away!

Jelena

Stillness Within
by LaMas

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

First of all - welcome to the madness of DPC challenges.

This is a very interesting image. The first striking thing about it is the wealth of textures - the walls, her cloak, the rug above her head. The depth of field works well for this.

The composition isn't necessarily very DPC friendly - the conventional thing to do is to make the subject very much the focus of the picture, and steer clear of any distractions (like the rug above her head), unless they're directly complementing the subject. However, the fact that it's unconventional makes it interesting.

The other obvious DPC objection is that the face isn't in focus. Again, I'm not convinced it's a valid objection. The voters have a bias towards very crisp, clear images, but in this case the soft focus and shadows on her face make it look quite mysterious, and are possibly complementing what you were trying to achieve with the photo.

The white spots in the lower right corner are quite distracting. I know these just randomly happen, to the best of my knowledge, the only real solution is to take lots and lots of images, then pick the ones that don't have such problems (I've taken anything up to 300 for a single challenge).

In terms of the post-processing:
I would've cropped a small part of the bottom of the picture to get rid of the white line in the right corner. The best way to get exactly the relations you want between the blacks and whites in the picture is to use the 'curves' function in Photoshop, which might potentially improve the picture. Also, I don't know what you used to convert it to B&W, I find the channel mixer does a much better job than the 'desaturate' function, as you can get exactly the level of contrast you want by playing with the percentages. Also, the image is 620px high, which is close to the maximum, but you might as well use the full dimensions allowed - the bigger the image is, the more of a chance it gives the viewers to appreciate it.

Anyway - hope this helps, and keep on entering challenges!

Any questions, just PM me.

Jelena

Message edited by author 2007-04-02 17:49:47.

Maniacs
by vadvirag

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

As was commented on already - this is a perfect picture for the challenge theme. My comments would be as follows:

Technically, I think this is a very good photo. The lighting is just right (their faces are nice and lit up), and the DOF works very well for this - I love the small blur of a person in the lower right-hand corner, I think it really adds to the image. Good background too - contracts against the lady nicely.

However, I think the composition could have been better. The positioning of the lady is perfect, and the expression on her face and the wind in her hair work really well - she's got this lovely faraway look that captures the fact her mind is really somewhere else. The guy, on the other hand, clutters up the composition (imo). If she was by herself, the picture would have a much greater emotive content, but I guess wouldn't capture the 'mania'. As it is, it could have been improved if he was standing slightly further back, and maybe facing in the other direction. Because they're the same height, and he's sort of blending into her, I think the photo loses some of its impact. It also doesn't help that his face and clothes are a similar colour to the background - I think the shot would benefit from being recomposed so that he's a smaller but distinct entity.

But anyway - well done on a good shot.

PM me if you have any questions.

Jelena

Love me tender
by Simpa

Comment:
Sexy image! But why, oh why the silly border...? Because the image is B&W, the first thing you see is the coloured border, and it actively distracts from what I consider to be a lovely, sensual image.
I also would have maybe cropped off some of the empty space on the left, I'm not sure it's actually enhancing the photo.

Btw - once the challenge is over, if you add a black border copy of this to your portfolio, I'll add it to my faves.