Old Silver Band 4
by NVPhoto

Comment:
Now, THIS one I like! I like the immediacy of it, it jazzes me up (so to speak). The color's just great for me, the complementaries working like that, the transparency of the green, the luminance of it.One might wish the raised arm on the left weren't aobscuring the guitarist's hand work, but what the heck. It is what it is. Nice!

Old Silver Band 2
by NVPhoto

Comment:
For me this image is solid but not spectacular. It doesn't really involve me, draw me in. There's nothing happening in the face, I think; it's not even contemplative-looking. The focus would seem to be the near hand, which is OK except it isn't; in focus, I mean. I know this is real tough of course, shot wide open handheld at slow shutter speeds...

It would be great, BTW, if you would post your settings with the picture, especially on shots like this, band shots where low-light contril is essential.

Anyway, I also find the BG spot unncomfortably close to the hand action, a sort of souble whammy. So, a nice shot but nothing to get real excited about in my book.

To-Bear_music.jpg
by Mambe

Comment:
Yee haw! Are we getting there or what? mambe, this shot's "just like you"; sweet and serene and soft and comfortable. Nice work!

Reflections at Concord Point
by LN13

Comment:
If you compare this shot with your "heron" shot at the same location, looking at composition only, you can see, I am sure, how much stronger the other one is. Here you have a surprsingly static composition considering the grace of allt he component elements. It's dividing into 3 horizontal bands, none of the alone especially powerful or compellin.

You have other issues as well, especially with sharpening, which has haloed the poles, and also with not having the image aligned vertically (the lighthouse is falling over, and there's no real horizon to worry about, so...)

On the plus side, the merging of sky and water is fantastic, positively ephemeral. As with the other, I'd love to play with this one if you sent me the original. It's the best way I have of showing what I mean, which is why I do so much of my "commenting" in the forums where evryone can study the work being done.

Concord Point Lighthouse with Heron
by LN13

Comment:
Larry, this is potentially an absolute KILLER good shot. I'm glad you asked for comments and I got to see this.

One interesting thing; the horizon does not "feel" quite level even though it actually is. The reason why is cuz you've pointed the camera down quite a bit and so the lighthouse itself is leaning outwards near the top of the frame. Now, this can be fized with POS perspective control, and I'd be inclined to try that.

Another issue is the radial banding in the sky; I'm not sure if that's just an artifact of compression or visible at a larger size as well; but I do know that I process a lot of shots similar to this and don't have a problem with it. I see it's a 98kb image, so that may explain it.

Finally, I see here a prime candidate for some subtle contrast masking. If you'd like to send me the original jpg (or a full-size jpg from RAW if that's what you shot) I'd love to experiment with this shot. My e-mail's on my profile.

You keep watch while I....mrmph...
by BeeCee

Comment:
This is sort of a transitional image for you, in your small portfolio. I look at the dates on your various entries, and I see such rapid improvement! I'm sure by now you're aware how relatively unsophisticated the lighting is in this shot, and wish you could do it again. I'd make particular note that the pure black surround is not an ideal one for this subject, and that you have a vague "glare" on the box itself that is hurting you. That's the wax overlay on the cardboard carton, I believe. Some sort of coating anyway. It is possible that a polarizing filter would solve that problem; they work to some degree even with artifical light.

Genesis
by BeeCee

Comment:
Again, a fine concept and a very decent image. I might have tried to avoid the strict horizontal lineup of eggs across the top. As others have noted, the not-all-blue egg is a bit of a problem also. I wonder if actually PAINTING the egg with a wash of food color would have helped? That said, this is overall very competent work, and very imaginative as well. I like it!

Alphabet Soup with Quackers
by BeeCee

Comment:
This image has many strengths, not least among them the absolutely gorgeous lighting on the flatware. I mean, really! Conceptually, it's also very strong. What I do NOT like as much is the desaturated-looking yellow of the duckies, and their unnatural beak color. I have a couple duckies like that, and they are hard to shoot. I have a couple other duckies that are much MORE yellow, and they are a joy to work with.

Finally, the BG itself is unfortunately quite uninspired, a rather insipid color and very flatly-lit. If it were advanced editing, you could solve it by burning in from the upper right along both edges with a gradient, but that wasn't an option here. Better control of your light would have done the trick, to allow the BG to shade off to dark upper left; a "pool of light" as it were...

untitled
by BeeCee

Comment:
I am actually getting to like your style. I'm glad you asked us to take a look, I've never studied your portfolio before. There's nothing I can "recommend" to "improve" this shot. I mean, sure, there's a zillion ways it mighthave been done and arguably some might have scored better, who knows? But this is very dynamic and luminous and just an all-around handsome shot. I like the tonal progression of it especially, as articulated by the diagonal shift from dark to light and shadow to luminance (not the same thing). Good one!

Aquatic Waves
by sherpet

Comment:
Now this one is quite beautiful. Here you are getting into interesting territory. Have you tried cropping the original a tad around the area that is currently the center of this image, so that you don't get that faint sense of "horizon"? It might be worth experimenting with. I like this very much.