"Soon the Hunt Will Begin..."by
RoosterComment by ladyhawk22: Hello from the Critique Club!
My first impression when looking at this photo was that I wasn't quite sure what it was, but that it had a unique, almost "alien" type quality to it. And then I looked at your notes and saw it was the Predator :-) So I felt that that "alien" feel was very appropriate! I think the background you chose definitely helps give that feel, and it was a great choice to keep the shot simple.
My other thought was that this has a good start at really having some movie-poster qualities to it (something that typically scores well here). To get that super-great score, it just needs a little more drama. I think that some slightly different lighting would really make this shot pop and stand out in the crowd. Figures in general are pretty hard to light, and I don't have notes on your lighting, so my apologies if this advice goes awry! I like the shadowed look that you've created on the front of this figure, but it's lacking a little bit of detail that gets hidden at the edges. One way to solve that might be to add some soft backlighting, which would help highlight the edges--making it more obvious what the figure is. I think, particularly in this case, that it would also help the viewer see this cool piece of art made of car parts!!
I think that a bit more total light might improve the score a bit too. In general, regardless of how fitting to the theme of the shot, darker images are harder to win with. There are tons of reasons, but the biggest one is that it's hard to really see the shot...which means the average voter won't look at it as long as they should. Because focus, detail, composition, and all of that are some of the criteria we vote on, it's hard to score well with a photo where the lighting hides some of those technical aspects.
I hope that helps a little, and if you ever do a reshoot or want a sounding board, feel free to send me a PM!
Photographer found comment helpful.
