Aging Wall on the Fallasburg Covered Bridge
by Drake

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Technically this is a pretty decent photo, with no blown-out highlights, even on the ice. Nice touch with the Canada Geese bobbing in the water to the left. I love old buildings and the barnboard appearance of the bridge shows its age. It has a certain dignity to it. However, as the lighting is a bit flat and you have an almost-flat on shot of the covered bridge, it gives the image a bit of a two-dimensional aspect. Depth is the third dimension that brings an image alive. Hitting it up with either a smaller aperture, even just f.4, would help add some contrast. Or you could do it in-camera or in a post-processing program. Even better would have been to walk up a little closer to the bridge to get more perspective, a sense of the bridge in time and space.

It would also help to shoot either slightly lower or higher than what I call 'average standing person point of view'. Crouching and shooting up with a shorter focal length than the 70-200 (I have that lens too) could make all the difference in the world.

Hope this helps, look forward to more entries from you. Feel free to PM me with any questions.

Susan

Deep in the Heart of Texas
by Phocal

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Ooh this is a dicey one, very out there and literally in your face, almost to the point of being too much. This verging-on -androgynous image is already very provocative, and the w/a fisheye only highlights that fact! The exposure and comp are fine and everything is sharp, but I can see you already knew this image might turn off the voters, and sadly it did. Had you used this same technique with a safer image, you probably would have done much better, but this is the kind of image that does take guts to enter, and I am glad that you took that risk.

So keep on shooting and don't be afraid to push the boundaries and comfort zones of DPCers!

Susan

Apple of my eye!
by doctabrez

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

I like this photo. Your nephew is very cute and doing the kind of thing that people like to see, which is acting uninhibited.
The overexposed bg highlights him well, and there is a lot of good greyscale going on. However, as you may have seem from the front page, photos featuring landscapes, urbanscapes, mountains, buildings etc are all what did well here. It's more a matter of the wrong challenge for this image than it being a poor image. The HDR effect is very strong in the details of his jersey's letters, for example, and gives a slightly surreal aspect to his face - where shadows would normally fall, there are light areas, which I think confuses the eye as it's looking for that shadow. Especially in a human face! HDR really does seem most at home in mountains, street scenes etc. I got soundly kicked in this challenge too, so don't feel too bad :-)

So, good work keeping the photo simple and not too busy.

Susan

Horatio's wall
by Neat

Comment:
Crazy amount of detail Horatio has going there. Congrats on the red!

Museum Of Glass, Tacoma Washington
by gipper11

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

What, you used *only* 5 frames to get this? ;-) Very nicely done, I gave this a 6 in a voting. Love the soft sky against the hard edges of the museum and surrounding features, a nice reversal of the usual, where silky water offsets hard rocks etc. Hard to pick nits here, it really is a fine example of HDR and great use of BW. Comp is achingly simple, which is good. Keep up the good work!

Susan

Blues
by Lydia

Comment:
You silly girl, if you need balls I'll just send you a pair. Go ahead and shoot wherever you damn well please. Can't help but wonder if the windows etc were there before or after the mural was painted? Is it Billie Holliday?

Oh and congrats on the ribbon!

p u t r e f i e d
by Ja-9

Comment:

Originally posted by snaffles: Greetings from the Critique Club! I gave this a 5 in voting and I think the fact that it's a duotone, and not b/w, is one reason; the next would be that 'melting brain' as described in a comment. It's a good pic, I like the comp and the rock/sponge/whatever-it-is...but I think its intrinsic texture is already a little discomfiting and off-putting for most people. Looking more closely I think it's a rock with foam washing over it, but it doesn't come across as such and the title doesn't help!! Just the word putrefied, which means rotting out, is a tip-off that the thing is unpleasant, almost preparing the viewer to be disgusted, if you can see what I mean. The NIK'd in scratches are imnsho a little much. You can and have done a lot better than this, Janine! Feel free to PM me with any questions Susan

Never mind the person it's ... The Golf Sale!
by MAK

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

I like street photography and gave this a 6 in voting. Love the sense of him vs the world, washing by him like water past a rock. Poor bloke indeed - look at the faces of all those striding past him, avoiding eye contact, eyes downcast, talking on phones etc. If they saw him and weren't golfers, all they probably thought 'Ha! Luckless wanker' and kept on going.

Honestly I don't see much HDR here, probably cause this pic on its own doesn't really need it. The comp is good, the only change I would make is crop out the upper-left FURLA sign. I find it draws the eye away from the hapless golf-promotion guy. Otherwise keep up the great work!

Susan

p u t r e f i e d
by Ja-9

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

I gave this a 5 in voting and I think the fact that it's a duotone, and not b/w, is one reason; the next would be that 'melting brain' as described in a comment. It's a good pic, I like the comp and the rock/sponge/whatever-it-is...but I think its intrinsic texture is already a little discomfiting and off-putting for most people. Looking more closely I think it's a rock with foam washing over it, but it doesn't come across as such and the title doesn't help!! Just the word putrefying is a tip-off that the thing is unpleasant, almost preparing the viewer to be disgusted, of you can see what I mean. The NIK'd in scratches are imnsho a little much. You can and have done a lot better than this, Janine!

Feel free to PM me with any questions

Susan

Westminster Bridge
by bennn123

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

I gave this a 7 during voting, so I already like this image :-) Great use of thirds and leading lines, the HDR is present but not heavy-handed, so maybe that's why I like it, and why it didn't do better. I didn't even notice the crane til Bear mentioned it, and I don't feel it detracts at all. Those that like silky water should love the almost metallic sheen you caught here. The only thing I don't really like is the arrow and concrete barrier...you have this great image drawing you in, and then there's this great whacking slab of concrete barrier effectively stopping the eye in its tracks. You don't want that!

Hope this helps,

Susan