Nativity at Night
by malski

Comment by Paul:
OK, I'm going through the Free Study submissions, purposefully finding those images I think are shot with a less conventional eye - this is one of those images! Thanks for offering something that isn't just DPC friendly eye-candy (though of course there's nothing wrong with eye-candy). I'll be picking one of these images for the Mu (most underrated) award:

Positives: Great perspective and coloration here and the blurred presentation allow us to see form over structure.

Critical stuff: I'm not sure what you could've done to avoid it but I don't like the blow highlights, they lead the eye away from the blue trails.

Overall: An effective image.

Nativity at Night
by malski

Comment by ScooterMcNutty:
you know everythinn is out of focus right?

Nativity at Night
by malski

Comment by littlegett:
I am sure every comment is the same, out of focus. It is, that part is obvious. However for me, I look and feel those streams of blue light distract me as well. At least the ones directly in front of me which create the center composition which is unappealing. I know how difficult these can be handheld, which I am assuming this is. Yet still...

Nativity at Night
by malski

Comment by spiritualspatula:
I have a hard time understanding why you chose to keep things out of focus. With such perfect leading lines, a low perspective shot with a short DoF, set close to the PoV, would have been much more effective for this scene. Those blue lines are perfect to use.

Nativity at Night
by malski

Comment by Yo_Spiff:
Nothing appears to be in focus... If that was an intentional creative effort, I'm afraid it's not working with me.

Nativity at Night
by malski

Comment by bvy:
Too out of focus.

Nativity at Night
by malski

Comment by Mitch55:
Nothing is in focus, so my eye doesn't know where to go.

Nativity at Night
by malski

Comment by Madukes:
this is out of focus-the shot is a very good idea-maybe a tripod would bring this into focus

Treescape
by malski

Comment by Yo_Spiff:
Now that I see what camera this was shot with, I see my comment was spot on. This is an example of a situation where better equipment would have made a difference. If you were shooting RAW with an SLR, you would have been able to recover some of that shadow detail without the artifacts. I gave it a 6 because of what you did accomplish with what you had.

I was also shooting JPEG with a similar camera at the same time of day. I was shooting away from the sun, however, and also did a 3 exposure HDR merge to compensate for the narrower dynamic range of the JPG format.

Message edited by author 2009-11-30 00:43:40.

Treescape
by malski

Comment by ThingFish:
Exquisite image with wonderful processing, lovely subtle colors and fine detail. Reminds me of a Japanese style colored pencil or charcoal crayon drawing. 10