Carry me!, and show me the world.
by Valdo

Comment:
***CRITIQUE CLUB RESPONSE***

Ivaldovi,

There's a lot to like in this image, but just as much keeping me from liking it a LOT, if you get my drift. I'm going to discuss the picture outside the context of the challenge, if that's ok? The reason is, as a "wind" challenge entry I don't think it works especially well, speaking more to me of serentity than of the turmoil of wind. You'll understand what I mean if you think of "Forrest Gump"; when the feather was floating around it was soft and swoopy, not being carried agressively by a wind. In fact, what was noticeable in "Gump" was the absence[/i) of wind, the condition of a feather falling in calm conditions.

The more I look at this picture, the more I deduce it was either shot vertically (in an actual breeze) and rotated 90 degrees, or perhaps shot with the arch up and the downy feathers hanging through fravity, then rotated 180 degrees. Speaking of the orientation of the image now, it is lit from directly below.

As has been mentioned by several critiquers, the framing of the shot is unfortunate; the image is too far up and the feather is truncated on the left. From this I deduce that you were probably [i]holding the feather, perhaps in your fingers, and thus had no choice but to cut the shaft off where you did. Regard;less of how this came about, it seems a bad decision to me. I'd really like to see the entire feather here, it's the only way you can really give me that sense of floating free that the image needs so badly. Condisering the extreme darkness of the background, you probably could have done this with a very thin wire inserted into the shaft and spray-painted matte black.

Another issue is the lighting. While it's not bad, I feel it could be improved if the light source were not only beaneath the feather but also a little behind it, so there's a trace of translucent backlighting. Did you try this?

Finally, given that the challenge is "wind" it might have been better not to have the feather so squared up within the frame, but rather at some sort of an angle. This could be just a matter of the same edge-on view but a less-horizontal alignment, but arguably the feather itself should be twsited somewhat in 3 dimensions. In other words, while keeping the same edge-on view, perhaps rotate the feather about its shaft so the far side is a little higher than the near side. Then rotate the feathet like a clock face, so it's maybe 30 degrees off vertical. This ought to bring a little more dynamics to the image, suggest a sense of movement.

These suggestions are not that radically different from what you've done, just a matter of tweaking things for a less-static image.

Let me know if you do any more experimenting with this...

Robt.



Message edited by author 2004-12-27 21:45:57.

windy flame
by greslizzz

Comment:
***CRITIQUE CLUB RESPONSE***

Greslizz,

You've noticed this iamge has drawn very few responses. Why? because nothing about it stands out, really, as compelling a return visit to the image or a comment. It's basically a plain-vanilla shot of a candle flame. Appealing enough, but nothing to get our juices flowing.

On the plus side, your framing of the shot is pretty good; there's a basic dynamic to the composition that works decently. However, the background is, to me eyes, a disaster; it adds nothing to the candle/flame subject, and in fact detracts from it. If the background were toned down a couple stops that might work a little better, but this would be kind of hard to do within the basic editing rules.

What's really working against you here is the blown-out highlight of the flame. If the flame were properly exposed, it woudl have nuances of color and separation that would bring life to the image. This, most likely, would require supplemental lighting to bring up the candlestub itself. So while you're dealing with this lighting issue, you can also light the background in such a way that both the stub and the flame "pop" out from a more subdued, but still visibly-grained, horizontal wooden backdrop.

I hope this has been helpful. If you try to remake this image, as an exercise, please let me know and I'll look at the new version too.

(robt)

Wind summoned
by nico_blue

Comment:
***CRITIQUE CLUB RESPONSE***

Nico,

I can see in my mind's eye what you're after here, and it's quite a challenge you set yourself with this picture. It would be extremely difficult to pull off, and this particular image isn't even close to the "wow" point, unfortunately.

1. The overall sense of the image is muddy.
2. The depth-of-field is way too shallow.
3. even within the shallow DOF, the fingertips are not what we'd want to emphasize, certainly not at the expense of the paper fragments.
4. The vertical framing is working against what you'd want to accomplish; landscape mode would allow more horizontal "woosh".
5. For an image that's meant to convey "wind" this is curiously static. The horizontal framing proposed above would help free it up, as would placing the fingertips at a more dynamic, diagonal angle.
6. I suspect that using some degree of backlighting (only the fingertips would be lit, not the finger fronts, and the paper chips would glow a little) would help this image a lot.
7. I'd also like to see, within the horizontal framing, some of the paper chips blown beyond the fingers, I think...

Good luck with this one if you choose to keep trying to perfect the concept. I'd love to see any further results.

(robt)

Strong Wind
by Discraft

Comment:
***CRITIQUE CLUB RESPONSE***

Dis,

I liked this image a lot when I saw it in the challenge, and I like it still. It was one of the more creative interpretations posted, and it's technically well done. A small touch that particularly appeals is the blurring of the right foot, which adds a note of verisimilitude. Ditto the cocked knee's relationship to the bright horizon and the wonderful effect of the top part of the scarf "fluttering".

Two things strike me as slightly "off"; one you can deal with, the other you can't.

What you can't deal with is the position of the hands (and to a lesser extent, the arms): if this were "really" someone holding on to a pole for dear life, both arms would be fully extended and both hands would be wrapped around the pole. In the image, it's clear that the upper arm is being used as a "lever" to hold the pose. Maybe "clear" is too strong a word; perhaps most people would not notice this. In any case it's a minor thing.

What you CAN deal with is the cropping. Since the essence of a gale is horizontal movement, I think the extreme verticality of this image is working against the theme a little bit. I'd try cropping top and bottom significantly, while maintaining the same relative position of the figure. This will remove soem of the extreme verticality and let us savor the horizontal flow a bit more. I've taken the liberty of doing such a crop here:



I think this is a really fine & creative image in its own right, and even more so when measured against the challenge. Very good work, friend.

(robt)

I'm some hot stuff, baby!
by Prof_Fate

Comment:
This is a great fiure photo, shrap & evocative, but it's not "facy" enough for me for this challenge....

Something Wicked This Way Comes
by L1

Comment:
Really, really nice 'shopped abstraction, but not "facy" enough to work in this challenge IMO

The Crowd
by jemison

Comment:
lovely image but not "facy" enough to work here for me.

Sheepish
by Pixelstate

Comment:
This is absoilutely beautiful; I wish it were sharp enough to rank higher.

Small Naughty Birdie
by RayEthier

Comment:
great "find", so-so image. too much negative space on right, uninspired lighting

Life ain't so bad - being a toilet hinge
by Koriyama

Comment:
harsh and muddy to my eye, but a good find.