Sailing
by KIMYAPIX

Comment:

ALso, horizon is crooked, should always be dead-on with photos like this one.

senja
by arianto

Comment:

But a very nice photo indeed. 4.

Night Shot
by MayaM

Comment:
Congratulations on a well-deserved ribbon. I was happy to see this one on the DPC home page tonight!

The Face Of Celebration.
by shirin_patel

Comment:
Wrong challenge? Sorry, but can't see the link to the lenscap. Maybe I'll figure it out later, I have 7 days to go :-)

Nikon
by marbo

Comment:
Nice idea, but the colors don't do it for me. Could have been more vibrant...

lincoln memorial
by coralahn

Comment:
There is too much of 'nothing' in the bottom that should have been cropped out, as it does not contribute to an image.

Lake at night
by Caillie

Comment:
Watch your horizons...

Road through autumn
by crayon

Comment:
What a fine photo! Haven't voted in this challenge, but I would have easily given this a 7 in the first pass at least. As someone already indicated, the gray road (that has no complementary gray shade readily visible) is taking away from the mainstream flower/water droplet/color setup photo and hence the low scores. The car in the photo is small enough not to offer any details for the observer to enjoy, yet large enough to spoil the photo by taking away the attention from the nice leading lines.

Exposure and focus are dead on, I wish you waited (how long is the question) for all the cars to leave the frame. Deserted road would have inched you up some score-wise I think.

Keep up the good work. Stay out of the box and the voters will come one day...

texture of a palm
by lmcsweeney

Comment:
Lindsey,
Greetings from the Critique Club!

First impression: This is too small to analyze and enjoy! Actually, this would have been on a smaller size, even with the 'normally' sized challenge where you can go up to 640 px. You could visit some of the tutorials on resizing the image for the challenge.

Composition: Not an interesting composition overall. There isn't a single part of this photo that draws the attention to itself. Therefore, the eyes of the viewer wander all over the canvas trying to lock onto something to examine in detail, and there is nothing to stop on.

Technicals: Taking a photo when there is a strong sunlight presents a technical challenge as it is a very complex lighting setup. To avoid having blown portions of the image (like you have in the center and on the leaves from center to top-right) you need to stop down the aperture some more, and then lighten up the darker areas to balance the image. (By the way, if you populate the fields for the ISO, shutter speed and aperture in the details of a photo, it is sometimes easier to recognize why some things turned out the way they did, this way I have to guess on those). Using a fill-flash would achieve this goal, and another way to do it is to use a simple white cardboard to reflect some of the natural light onto the lighed areas.

To score higher than it did: A couple of things: Make use of the maximum available resolution. (Especially if the extra rules invite you to use 720 pixels - and this is a texture challenge where typically people look for sharp details in the subject(s)) Compositionally, try to make this image more appealing to the eyes of your viewers. Palm leaves offer nice opportunity in the study of textures. So, try taking only a couple of leaves in your frame and put them in one of the golden section points in the frame to make it stand out. Make sure your image does not have blown highlights anywhere, and that the focus is dead on.

Summary: Please keep trying. I haven't seen much of your work (you only have two challenge entries) but I would like to believe that there is more to come and that the scores will go up. DPC can help you improve, keep participating in forums where you can have your work criticized on request and you can usually receive valuable feedback. You are free to take as much as you want and discard as much as you want, because your goal should not be to please DPC public. However, you have some room for growth in general photography area, and please consider some of the comments you receive here until they get picky on details and on style that you may not want to change.

I am trying to do my best giving an honest critique - if you have any questions on this critique or if you disagree please feel free to PM or email me.

Best regards,

-Serge

Message edited by author 2006-04-20 13:51:26.

Feel the earth
by Kita

Comment:
Kita,
Greetings from the Critique Club!

First impression: The image is on a darker side. There is a slight blur and/or out of focus feel to it.

Composition: Too centered. The same image would have worked better if you have placed the boy in the top-left corner of your frame, and making the viewer follow in the direction of his eyes into the lower-right area where you would place the majority of your texture.

Technicals: Shutter speed was too low to capture a moving object. Also, for photographing something like a texture, you want to have as much of the object in focus as possible. So, using a tripod (if you have one, or bracing against something steady if you don't) would have helped a lot on this one. Feel free to bump the ISO, that would have given you an extra stop or two of light for faster shutter speeds.

To score higher than it did: Keep trying. One thing you could do is get out sometimes and try the things from the recommendation - mainly compositional suggestions. Of course, throw some flash or extra light in the photo to bring out the texture some more.

Summary: The idea to show the texture of the gravel is a good idea and including another object for contrast reasons is good, but it fell apart because of the slow shutter speed.

I am trying to do my best giving an honest critique - if you have any questions on this critique or if you disagree please feel free to PM or email me.

Best regards,

-Serge