Dew & Light
by anthonyczaja

Comment:
Hello, and Greetings from the Critique Club. I'm your Critiquer, Artyste, and our specials for today are honesty and a well balanced offering.

Initial Thoughts

I like it, but something's wrong.. I am seeing blur where I expect to see focus.

Composition / Content

That initial thought can be brought up here in this section. Typically, (and especially on a website where load times can be a little slower from some people), you generally don't want to turn them off a photo before the photo even loads. (I know, it's superficial, but hey.. welcome to DPC). In this case, your use of the focal point being in focus in the bottom half of the image probably caused a few people to vote you a little lower than they might have. For an image such as this, it's probably a little better to bring your focal point up to the middle, and allow the forground to be OOF. Other than that, you can see that you scored pretty well, and it's definitely a good image with a theme that is well recieved here.

Background

What can I say? Using a shallow DOF is a great idea, and a black background really pops the colors of the leaf and droplets. Good choice.

Camera Work / Technical

Your choice of shallow DOF is a good one, IMO, but again.. I would bring that focal point into the center of the image so as not to throw off the initial viewing. Having the forground out of focus would also allow a little more feeling of depth. Your focus is very nice and crisp though, and your lighting is great. The highlights really offset the shadows.

Digital Processing

Seems like you hit all the right processing steps, and the look of the photo shows you have a good feeling for what you want out of an image. Nice work. (There's some weird bokeh in the middle of the upper portion of the leaf, a little work with selective blurring there might have softened that up and cleaned up the image a little).

Fits the Challenge

D - Dew yup, there's dew. L - Light. Yup, got that too. Fits the challenge in my book :)

My Opinion of the Photo

Well done, and a nice photo to look at, but also a little cliche. We see this kind of thing all the time. For me, that's not a positive. However, I'm not DPC, and as we all know.. DPC *looves* the cliche, so great job on a well done photo that people obviously liked. Nice score, and good luck in future challenges.

There's No Better Way to Fly
by bigfish

Comment:
Hello, and greetings from the Critique Club. Let's get started.

Initial Thoughts

Kind of bland.. yes, it's milk, but there's nothing really interesting going on here. Kind of blurry.

Composition / Content

Compositionally, it's a little bottom heavy. The glass itself centered more would help a little.. or possibly more from the top to eliminate the background. Truthfully though, I just can't see a way to make this a more dynamic and grabbing photo.. I'm just not that good myself :)

Background

Unfortunately, the background here is just a little too busy, and the cutoff from the tray to the back of the seat/floor really distracts too much from your subject. "Clean" works very well on DPC. Something to always watch out for.

Camera Work / Technical

Having owned the s7000, I can say that I know how hard it is to focus with the thing in low-light.. even on "manual focus" (although with that camera manual focus is pretty much worthless). Your choice of aperature, although sort of needed for the low light, certainly didn't help with focus. and DOF either. The photo is just too fuzzy in the areas in needed sharp focus to be appealing to voters. Your exposure is also a little too low, although the white balance is nice.

Digital Processing

A little more work with sharpening and levels might have brought this out a little better, but it's hard to fix a photo that just isn't very strong to begin with. That's about all I can suggest for post.

Fits the Challenge

Obviously fits the challenge, but as pointed out, not a strong photo in and of itself, which causes "meeting the challenge" to go by the way-side.

My Opinion of the Photo

A not very flattering photo of a not very flattering subject. Dynamic lighting, tack sharpness, and a change of perspective would probably really help a photo like this.. but that's not always possible on an airplane.

Good luck in the future.

Ghost milk
by pinbokeshatta

Comment:
Hello, and Greetings from the Critique Club. Let's get started.

Initial Thoughts

Confusing.. what am I looking at.. and.. where's the milk? A little too much work into figuring this photo out.

Composition / Content

It's hard to even find something to touch on in this photograph as it's just too difficult to make out what it's supposed to be. I imagine some kind of reflection, but it's hard to make out what it's being reflected in, or even what is being reflected. The title helps a touch, making one think it's probably a milk carton of somekind, but as I keep saying, it's just too much work to figure it out. As a pointer.. this is *death* with voters. If they can't immediately say "AHA!" within 2 - 5 seconds.. you're sunk.

Background

Again, I can't even figure out what the background is or where it should be :)

Camera Work / Technical

Reflection shots are tricky, because if you focus on a reflection, you generally lose focus of the things around it, and in this case, it really makes the rest of the photograph suffer. Using a smaller aperature would help the focus problem, but then you run into lighting problems, especially indoors. It's a tricky problem. More experimentation, of course, would help.. but for DPC challenge photos, I would try to avoid this kind of thing completely unless you can get it almost exactly right.

Digital Processing

Not knowing what you did on the photo makes it hard to comment on this part. A slight yellow cast here, but generally the photo isn't one that processing can really fix. This is mostly a compositional and physically related problem.

Fits the Challenge

With the proper amount of time to really study the image, one can see that it indeed fits the challenge, but I can guarantee the majority of voters simply looked, said "what the heck?" (or something more colorful), voted low, and moved on. Remember.. getting a photo that gets the voter to say "AHA!" right away is very key to getting higher scores.

My Opinion of the Photo

Of course, my opinion was made early, and I stick by it. Too confusing, too much going on without any one thing really standing out, and just generally a photograph of *something*, but could be anything on first viewing. Clarity is so very important, so remember that for next time.

Good luck on future challenges.

don't cry...
by mesmeraj

Comment:
Hello, and greetings from the Critique Club. Let us get started, and hopefully I'll help in some small, or large, way.

Initial Thoughts

I was grabbed by this as soon as it came up as a very daring and fascinating photograph.

Composition / Content

You've definitely got some dynamic composition going on here. The glass grabs you first, being out front and in focus, and gives the viewer a choice of viewing. The colors of the girl in the background, or follow the accident. Peripherally, even if you follow the milk spillage, you are still given the view of the girl and you instantly know something else is going on here besides spilled milk. The energy in the girl's pose is also wonderful, and you really feel for her.. why is she so distraught over such a simple thing.. this opens the door to a story.. Are there other, worse things happening here? What emotional issues could possibly work to give such a strong reaction to the subject?

Great work on the emotional/artistic side of the photo. Unfortunately, things of this nature are not generally huge for DPC voters, and tend to get left by the wayside. If you're concerned about score, I would try and leave the artistically potent photos by the wayside.. if you are concerned more with showing your work.. then you've made a heck of an impact.

Background

I love how you've given the background a life of its own, and also included a subject beyond your main subject. This is seldomly seen in this kind of capacity. Your DOF is also wonderful, as the fade-out adds to the emotional distraughtness.. If there's anything *I* would do, it would be to maybe switch the heels out for a more "pedestrian" type of shoe, giving the distraught subject a more innocent "I don't deserve this" type of feel.

Camera Work / Technical

Given the fact that you were using a P&S (albeit a very good one), your shallow DOF work is fantastic. I know first hand how hard it is to do great DOF work with these cameras, and you've nailed it quite well. More DOF in the foreground on the milk probably would have solidified the photo more for voters, but I like it as it is. Gives the viewer the focus on the glass, and, as I said earlier, allows them the choice of where the eye leads. Your exposure might be a little on the under side, but easily correctable in post.

Digital Processing

Without spot editing, you're right, the speck stands out once you notice it, but I think more people are forgiving of that in open challenges. As for processing, just a couple of points. I'd have used levels a little more to really brighten up the milk and other lighter areas of the photo, and then used either contrast or selective color (with neutrals and blacks), to give a nice contrast boost. This would make the photo pop a little more and remove the "flatness" feel that it has. It's not a strong flat, but it is there to my eyes.

Fits the Challenge

Don't think we can argue that it doesn't fit the challenge, and is probably one of the more original and unique shots in the challenge.

My Opinion of the Photo

I love the shot. It's a wonderful take, suggests a great story and can really make a viewer think. You set out to make a photograph and I believe you've done just what you wanted to. A couple tweaks to the processing (contrast, slight sharpening, levels), and you'd have probably brought this up to a good 6.2 or so. Just remember that this type of photograph is generally overlooked by a lot of voters, so you have to choose sometimes whether you want to submit for yourself, or for a score.

Good job, and good luck in future challenges.

Delicate & Lovely
by librodo

Comment:

Originally posted by terje: Originally posted by Artyste: Over smoothed, oversharpened, and yet still an 8.1 Unbelievable. Guess that's the prize for being a recognizable and very well liked artist on this site. Of course, compositionally it is as great as ever, although I'd have loved to have seen a more colorful background. The black seems to really point out the over-sharpening where a more natural background may have helped hide it a little more. Also, once again, would that I had a bank of "exotic" looking people to shoot.. seems to really make a punch with North Americans. Anyway, for me, a touch less of smoothing and sharpening would give this photo some real life.. Guess that's why I usually don't score well here. 8.1 because it was the best of the lot, not because it was "Over smoothed, oversharpened" as you said, and not because it was taken by manny (anonymous during voting, several people have submitted photos like this in the past). Vote and comment on the photo, and accept the result, don't be a loser and whine about it. The reason your photos don't score as high, is mainly because the many hundred voters on this site don't find them as interesting or good as other photos, blaming that on "popularity" or "over sharpen/smoothed" is just plain wrong. I gave this 10 and I suspected it was librodo, but if it had been anyone else I wouldn't have rated it any different. So I disagree with what you've said.

Look, I have my opinions and I commented them. This is Librodo's comment section, not "attack people" section. If you want to do that, PM me please.

Delivery & Labor
by skief

Comment:
Congratulations to the birth of your son :)

Delicate & Lovely
by librodo

Comment:
Over smoothed, oversharpened, and yet still an 8.1

Unbelievable. Guess that's the prize for being a recognizable and very well liked artist on this site.

Of course, compositionally it is as great as ever, although I'd have loved to have seen a more colorful background. The black seems to really point out the over-sharpening where a more natural background may have helped hide it a little more. Also, once again, would that I had a bank of "exotic" looking people to shoot.. seems to really make a punch with North Americans.

Anyway, for me, a touch less of smoothing and sharpening would give this photo some real life..
Guess that's why I usually don't score well here.

Dark Lenses
by samtrundle

Comment:
Thought you'd retired :) Ah well, look forward to seeing you fill up the Ds page, if anyone deserves to, you do.

Happy DPCing.

The Look
by Rikki

Comment:
I would recommend finding something to use as a reflector here. Your lighting on the background is a little strong, and without reflected light onto your model, it suffers too much in shadow. It also seems to be suffering from artifacting.. possibly from oversharpening or bringing levels up too high.

Surfacing
by oOWonderBreadOo

Comment:
One of my favorites of the challenge by far. I didn't vote (I rarely if ever vote on challenges I enter), but I really like it. A beautiful, engaging, and original take on a challenge that is just far too overloaded with the usual. Great job.