Flatlandby
MadMan2kComment by LalliSig: Greetings from the Critique Club :)
First off, let me congratulate you at a new personal best, at least for now, I am very confident you can get a 6+ and soon too. I hadn´t even discovered photography when I was 16 so keep that in mind, you are lightyears better now than I was when I was 16 :) Keep at it dude!
I generally like this photo, I didn´t vote but would probably have given it a 6. I like the motion panning, just enough to blur out the backround but still keeping the bike and boy almost pristine sharp, I like that the rods in the wheels are blurred out (sorry, don´t know what they are called in english) I think this is an excellent choice to make black and white, I don´t think I would have liked this shot as well if it had been in colour. I am a big sucker for heavy contrasted b/w right now and this is perhaps a little bit too flat for my taste but it´s nothing that is bothering me, just a personal preference.
Regarding the composition, I feel it´s a little bit cramped towards the top, you almost cut off part of the boy so I think it would have been better to have slightly more room to the top and a little less at the bottom. I see you said you cropped this, if you have any more space at the top I would love to see a version like that.
As for meeting the challenge, it certainly does so in my eyes but I think (not sure so take this with a grain of salt) that technically "Duotone" means b/w with some other colour, like sepia toned, or blue toned and such. While I would have voted it as meeting the challenge and I think that most people did since the challenge description specifically named b/w, I still think that a couple of people must have voted it with 1, 2 and 3 votes because it´s not a true duotone. Anyway, a huge challenge and you ended up in the top 10% so that´s pretty well done, now keep at it :)
Kind regards, Larus.
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