Wildlife Conservation....http://wcs.org/
by Gracious

Comment by danh669:
love the way the water works with the black and blue.

Sculpture
by Gracious

Comment by alanfreed:
Nice experiment with desaturating the colors, even though it left a few remants in some of the flowers in the shrubbery, and in the trees and roof.

Ready For Incoming Mail
by Gracious

Comment by Koriyama:
*critique club*

Overall
You’ve prepared a scene around the theme of waiting. The letter rack is empty, the knife on hand, the title clear. Graphically, there are three main subjects; the blue – silver colour combination, the objects themselves and the shapes which they produce. Shadows are also present, and I will return to them later. The question for this critique is whether or not the elements support the theme. Largely, any answer I give will be subjective, but I will try to elucidate my reasoning.

Technical
I̢۪m treating this shot as an art photograph. The scratches on the blue backing, the slightly soft focus on the knife, the strong shadows on the right and in the top corners all disqualify this from any commercial use. (For that, Orussell̢۪s diffuser suggestion would have helped tremendously, or actually use the lighting as a graphic element within the shot, always a viable, but dangerous, alternative.)

I feel that you tried to use lighting to create a sharp effect on the metal. However, there are large shadows under the knife, behind the letter rack, and the top corners are dark, suggesting that the single light source used wasn̢۪t sufficient to fully light the entire scene. It might have been better to have cropped a little off the top and up until the handle in the right to minimise any damage caused by shadows. If you really wanted the shadows, and the corrugated shadow from the letter rack would have been interesting if done clearly, then I suggest that you deliberately play with the light source to create that effect.

You set the automatic exposure for the entire scene. Rather than balance such a scene, average metering calculates an 18% average, which is fine for scenes containing lots of different colours and light intensities. Here, you only have navy, silver and gold. Reproducing accurate colours using average metering is a matter of chance here. Better would have been to meter for one colour only, then to manually change the exposure accordingly. For example, a reading of the silver would produce a dull silver. You̢۪d need to increase the exposure by about 2 stops to produce a glittering silver. The blue and the gold might be lighter, but not much. Certainly, the dark shadows would have been reduced, and more detail would have been visible in the knife body.

Artistic and Conceptual
Here, I̢۪ll try and answer my earlier question. How do, if they do at all, the combined elements support the theme of waiting? The knife suggests a strong line. How is the line used here? It moves from bottom right to above middle left. Does it take us out, or lead us into another part of the photograph? Actually, I think that the placing doesn̢۪t do anything deliberately at all. The circular theme in the letter rack is strong. A tunnel is formed, and you angle it to take us away from the starting point at the knife body. Are we led anywhere thematic or connected to any other place in the scene? The end of the tunnel itself forms an oval. Is that oval linked, too?

The knife and the letter rack have a common element; one is predominantly linear with a circular part, while the other is predominantly circular with a linear element. I would like to see these elements combine somehow, and for that ‘somehow’ to suggest the theme of waiting.

Suggestions
I don̢۪t feel that this scene answers my questions. So, I̢۪m going to suggest a few changes, some things you might think about in relation to these objects.

Be totally aware of all graphic elements in your shots. Play with them, experiment with combinations, see how other elements are formed when combinations interrelate. Make the arc at the end of the letter rack match, or belong to, a similar shape in the knife. Find angles which connect the given angles in your objects.

Thematically, play with the elements. A knife on top of the letter rack might suggest waiting more than one just placed by the foot. Or even through the rack, diagonally, or from the top? The straight lines in the rack might be juxtaposed parallel with the line of the knife creating a subdued feel or placed perpendicularly for a more dynamic contrast, supporting waiting? The arc and the tunnel both suggest waiting, don̢۪t they? Can they be used thematically?

If this were me, (goodness forbid) I might tie the knife to a very thin thread and hold it above the rack with the tip pointing slightly upwards. I̢۪d place the rack off-centre but face-on with the camera. Using a face-on camera angle, I would expose just for the brightest point, the silver, and shoot a macro shot from as close as I could from in front of the rack using a wide aperture. The resulting shot should be quite dynamic. I might try varying the scene by placing the knife behind the rack to the upper part of the resulting circle. At all times, I would be thinking about the shapes and connotations created. Take a couple of dozen shots, then choose.

I̢۪m sorry, but I didn̢۪t vote. I would have given a 4.

Best wishes,

Jim

Sculpture
by Gracious

Comment by JPR:
really nice focus although it seems slightly grainy. Its a shame about not being able to edit out the tree branches on the upper left. Really nice shot. Love how the red pops. Did you desaturate the other colors and saturate red or is this natural?

Sculpture
by Gracious

Comment by Malokata:
The red looks oversaturated, it's glaring instead of effective.

Wildlife Conservation....http://wcs.org/
by Gracious

Comment by Swashbuckler:
Beautiful shot! The bird seems a tad overly sharp, but I like this image so very much. Love the color. Nice amount of open spaces for type (nit, but worth commenting). A tad faster exposure might have stopped the leg motion. Still, I love this, so 10 - Rob the Swash

Wildlife Conservation....http://wcs.org/
by Gracious

Comment by goodtempo:
very nice. looks like a magazine cover.

Wildlife Conservation....http://wcs.org/
by Gracious

Comment by Pidd:
This is a nice photo and very appropriate for your magazine cover. The placement of the subject allows for the magazine title and article blurbs. As far as the photo itself is concerned, I particularly like the ripples of the water toward the top of the page.

Wildlife Conservation....http://wcs.org/
by Gracious

Comment by CLarson557:
This is a great cover for your magazine. The ripples on the water are nice. However, the bird seems a little blurred. I would have liked to see better detail. Perhaps this was taken a little far away. 8 Good luck in the challenge.

Pure Maple Syrup
by Gracious

Comment by Koriyama:
*Critique Club*
Overall
You use a very limited orange-centred colour palatte to create a homey, soft, comfortable feeling. Viewers are tempted to eat your offering, which is the point of the photograph. In this, you succeeded well in creating the mood. However, the colour limitations also tend to obscure key details, the syrup itself, the edge of the plate, the sense of runnyness of the syrup.

I like the precise dof used. The subject is very crisp and the fork is placed outside. The fork adds a human touch, we feel that someone is going to eat the waffle soon, but isn't a key element. Your dof brings out this very nicely.

I'm not certain that you're totally aware of your subject. There's a sense of confusion between the waffle and the syrup. If the subject is the waffle, the present placing is fine. But if the subject is the syrup, you need to consider ways to bring that out more.

Composition
You've placed the waffle dead in the centre of the shot, making it the key subject, not the syrup. I wonder if a much lower camera angle pointing to the place where the syrup runs off the waffle might have created a more dynamic effect and place the emphasis on to the syrup? The strawberry and the fork create a nice line, unbalancing the centred waffle.

Lighting
Here is the main problem - desk lamps tend to give an orange cast. Here, too much, I feel. You need to counter this using your white balance setting. I realise that you went for the orange glow, but viewers know that, for example, the plate is white, so the final effect is slightly unnatural. Also, the strawberry is hidden by too much shadow. You can position your lights at different distances to simultaneously provide light and depth. Same distance placing weakens any feeling of depth. For example, in this shot, you could put 1 lamp to the immediate left as the main light source and the other about 30cm further away to the front to help counterbalance the strong shadow.

Suggestions (take 'em or leave 'em as you will)
Fix the colour balance.
Set up the lights as suggested.
Get real close. A macro shot on the point where the syrup falls from the waffle. Use a slowish shutter speed to capture the drip.
Get out, wide. Show a human about to dive into the waffle. Focus on the emotion, the mixture of anticipation and expectation.
Clean up the syrup.
Use a differently-coloured plate, one that contrasts with the yellowish syrup, a blue, perhaps.
Change the composition. Subjects that are bang in the middle are often lacking in interest.

Best wishes,

Jim