Peppercorn Blend
by OneSweetSin

Comment:
Hi there from the Critique Club!

This was an interesting choice for a Macro challenge. It reveals a desire to achieve something original (oddly, I toyed with the idea of vari-colored peppercorns myself). You don't mention what you were aiming for so I'm going to evaluate this based on the assumption that you were going for a flat, graphic quality rather than a more three-dimensional study. If this is the case, you were fairly successful. There are no distracting glares or hot-spots to interfere with the pattern created by the peppercorns. There are shadows but they are compressed and black enough to work as a sort of outline throughout the design. The white peppercorns at first seem rather distracting but a longer viewing reveals an S-shape created throughout the vertical plane accented at either end by a red and green peppercorn. This may be purely accidental but it is interesting enough to be worth noting. I have to agree with other commenters that the image is a bit grainy. I'm not convinced that it hurts this image though. It might be interesting to add even more grain and see what results.

In closing, I find that although it is not an entirely successful photograph, it reveals curiousity and a desire to explore the texture, form, and color of your environment beyond the 'safe' subjects, which is a step in the right direction.

Thanks for sharing it.

Blue Moon
by train

Comment:
Hi there from the Critique Club!

This is an interesting and challenging image to critique. Having spoken with you in the past and seen the quality of some of your nature and landscape studies I feel you probably intended the soft focus, fuzzy quality of this image. Or, at least, having seen it, decided it was a happy accident and chose to be brave and offer it up for DPC voters. ;-D

I applaud you for sticking by your creative guns. You've certainly entered enough challenges to know the mind of the average DPC voter and that this was likely to suffer in the voting.

Leaving aside the soft focus for a moment, let's concentrate on the composition. I feel it is quite good and shows a skillful eye for using the foreground to frame a far away subject to draw the viewer's eye. This view through the shadowy branches creates an almost eerie 'watcher in the wood' like mood. Very likely not the intention but effective nonetheless. The casual viewer probably did not notice the lovely pale blue ring around the moon so you probably suffered from 'doesn't meet the challenge' voting. This blue,combined with the extreme glow of the moon, creates an interesting confusion in my mind. It could be the sun shining in a twilit sky. Very surreal. There is a vignette effect created within the frame of the trees by the darker clouds which I find heightens the surreal mood. I have to admit, I quite like this shot. If I had not been critiquing for the CC I may have dismissed it as 'too blurry' but having the time to really peruse it, I find it has a dreamlike quality to it--much like the images created through a pinhole camera. It is not the type of image that will ever win a ribbon on DPC but I rather like that you saw an opportunity and went ahead and made the image despite the lack of a tripod. Certainly, the pioneers of hand-held photography attempted similar 'experiments'.

So, in closing, I find I enjoy the eerie, dreamlike quality of this image which I attribute to the combined factors of the pale blue sky and glowing moon, the soft focus, the vignetting of the clouds, and the 'watcher' like mood of the framing.

Thanks for sharing it.

One Favorite Sneaker
by melismatica

Comment:
I doubt anyone will bother reading this but I feel the need to state that this image was barely manipulated in post-processing. I achieved the high contrast look by upping the EV setting to overexpose the white background. The only thing I did in post-processing was to adjust the darks and lights in the color balance to make the black a bit richer (added blue) and the whites brighter (subtracted yellow). I upped the contrast a tad. The painting on the sneaker was done by my daughter and was not added digitally (which would be illegal in any case). The point was, the high key, graphic quality of this image was fully intentional and for that reason alone, I'm quite happy with it and feel that it was a success. The original, simply resized.

Shutter Speed 1/45
Aperature F 3.5
ISO 160
EV+ .7

Message edited by author 2004-08-07 02:21:24.

Daniela Plastic Child
by frumoaznicul

Comment:
Cristi, I gave this a 10. I thought it was very authentic as cover art. I admit, I thought it was a grigigirl photo because of the dark humour and the gritty b&w quality. You placed well but IMO this was superior work that should have placed much higher than it did.

Desperate Phone Call
by melismatica

Comment:
Thanks for all the great comments! It's very gratifying. Especially seeing the average score from commenters. I feel almost like this photo was cheating since I used a gorgeous photo of my mother as part of the composition. Isn't she beautiful? The marine is my dad--a very handsome fellow, IMO. :-D

I really did work hard to find a good angle and cropping. Photographing photos isn't easy, I've discovered.
I used a desk lamp and Home Depot reflector, both fixed with 75 watt Natural light bulbs. To get even more of a vintage feel I slightly oversaturated the color. It works because most of the set-up has neutral or white so only the phone and my mother's photo got saturated. My daughter suggested doing something to brighten the phone a bit, since it appeared drab to her so I used the dodging tool on a corner of it and the tablecloth. This gave the appearance of sunlight spilling through curtained windows, I thought. At any rate, it passed my daughter's inspection.

I didn't know we could add text until almost the last minute. Fortunately, I had a decent area of negative space where I could insert it somewhat believably.

Originally posted by dagaleaa: I like this....reminds me of an album cover from the 80's....

I thought the same thing. My husband furthered that idea by suggesting it looks like cover art for an 80's single.

Thanks again!

Melissa

Seconds after it all collapsed
by biggood53

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

A house of cards is a great subject for illustrating balance. You've got a good start here, in spite of your confusing wording. :-D

I don't feel that the building of the house is as interesting as the house itself. From this point of view there isn't really much to interest the eye. Someone suggested a more dramatic angle of view and I would have to agree with that. I would go further and suggest that the house should have been created in front of a simple background to really highlight the intricate structure. The black vest is a good start but the bright green shirt and background elements of the room are distracting. The wrinkled red cloth adds another overly bright visual element that detracts from the potential elegance of the photo.

This is the kind of set-up where you could have used a little trickery, such as creating the house of cards with hot glue so that you had a somewhat stable structure that could be moved around a little bit and experimented with. Try different backgrounds using draped cloth, poster board or simply blur the background sufficiently to avoid distracting elements. The angle I would suggest would be from below and from a position which shows the flat planes of some of the cards and not just the edges and negative space.

This is a fun idea that has a lot of potential for dynamic visual interest.

quietude
by Loki

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

This is a very nice idea for the Balance challenge. Overall, I like the composition. The black and deep blue color scheme is very peaceful. I would have to agree with the some of the comments you received during the voting regarding her watch and the sharpness of the image. Something in me feels that the cropping is a bit stingy. I'd like to see a bit more space above her head and at either side. Also, this pose from what is obviously a standing position doesn't quite portray the meditative quality it would if she were seated. I'm guessing there was no way of achieving this and retaining the simple background of the sky but it appears like more of a set-up this way.

Still, this is a very good effort and shows that some thought was put into the making of it.

gadive
by fstopopen

Comment:
It's obviously not about chocolate but I like this photo. It has movement, color, form, and mood. My only problem is it is a bit top heavy. I flipped it horizontally and rotated it and came up with this.


BTW, I didn't vote on it.

Donut-Policemen Conspiracy
by debitipton

Comment:
This is awesome! One of my favorites.

Dakar Percussion Circle
by DiamondPete

Comment:
Very authentic looking. I know because this is excactly the type of CD or record I would pass right by while browsing. Not because it is bad art but because I know what type of musical style the art style typifies. Blah. Not to my taste at all. You've captured that style very well. Good choice of font and nice layout.