Progress
by kncoughlin

Comment by Neuferland:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Hi! Here to do the indepth critique you requested and I hope I can help.

I really liked this shot during the challenge, gave it an 8 as a matter of fact, now let me try to explain why it didn't get a 10, though it has that potential for me.

First the aspect ratio of the size of the thighs to the shoes is really distracting, the feet look so tiny compared to the thighs in the shot, it's a bit disorienting and hard to look at for any length of time. For a poster to work for me I want to be able to look at all day long if needed or at least want to look at without causing a bit of eye strain. The washed out look on the thighs is also a bit distracting yet works for this shot overall. It grabs your attention and brings you into the shot. If we could get those feet to look just a bit bigger! :)

Also the cropping or angle on the floor is also off a bit and makes me a bit dizzy to look at it for too long. Maybe a slight rotation to balance it a bit would also help with the foot/thigh equation.

I like the lettering and the font but the side borders seem very heavy on this shot. Maybe if you brought them in a bit, left the top font as is and made the lower font a bit smaller (not the same size as the top) so it would fit it would work just a bit better.

Hope all this helps, if you decide to play with this image and take any of my suggestions, I would love to see it!

Good Luck In Future Challenges!

Deannda
DNeufer@stny.rr.com if you have any questions or want to discuss this further!

Progress
by kncoughlin

Comment by undieyatch:
I enjoy the colour combinations...........

Sapphire and Diamonds
by kncoughlin

Comment by Harz_Joerg:
Greetings from the Critique Club

Initial thoughts/My opinion
Great, eye pleasing concept but regarding the image quality rather poor executed. The glare as focal point is a fine idea, but a little overdone.

Content/Composition
This is one of the few images where one sees the tumbnail-version and says "Great, that's gone be interesting" and after you click on it one is somewhat disappointed.
Have a look at the thumbnail: it shows an image of wonderfully flowing lines. The hair and the beautiful ear are building a homogeneous, very appealing background/surface with nice soft contrast. On this background one sees a well placed earring, which is shiny and bright and one looks forward to see its details.
Now click on the thumbnail: At least I was disappointed: the hair and ear are not as smooth as expected, they are grainy and full of artefacts. Some of the brighter hairs look fine, as long as they are include into the flow of the rest of the hairs. Other hairs, especially right below the ear do not add to this flow, you might have combed them too.
Now to the earring: it should be the contra-point to the nice female ear and hair. Shinny and crisp in contrast to the soft skin and hair (actually, I think this contrast is the big point of any jewellery). It's shinny, of course but not crisp, because it's as fuzzy as the background.
And as already mentioned the artistic feature of the glare is overdone.
Otherwise the light, especially on the head itself is well set.

Camera work -technically
Assuming that the fuzziness is the result of post-processing, to me the image seems to be taken well.

Digital Processing - Technical
Overdone regarding the fuzziness.
If it's the result of the quality right out of the camera, reducing the size of the whole image might have been an easy solution.

Fits the challenge
Of course it does!

Conclusion
The image shows that you have an eye for creating a fine image, just some (easy learnable) technical aspects might be addressed better.

Good luck for you further submissions

Progress
by kncoughlin

Comment by dr rick:
The wide-angle focal length effectively exaggerates the length of the legs. It also distorts the floor tile, but that's minor. The whiteness of the upper legs is distracting. I don't care for the red letters; it is too intense. I think orange or gold would go better with the message.

Progress
by kncoughlin

Comment by moonwater:
creative

Progress
by kncoughlin

Comment by blindjustice:
Those look like sexy shoes, but this is not the most flatering angle. I love the red letters with the black and white- 80's very punk album cover.

Progress
by kncoughlin

Comment by Kavey:
Highly quirky but works very well for me. It has a really modernist feel to it - the limited colour palette of just black, white and red is so classic. The image itself is gritty, offers a weird perspective and makes you look and look again.

Progress
by kncoughlin

Comment by kaycee:
The red text seems to "bleed" into the black. Image seems a little over-saturated - too bright near the tops of the legs.

Progress
by kncoughlin

Comment by timmi:
Interesting viewpoint. Like that it is b&w. The mat is well done, but the red text took it over board. If your text was simply white and a bit less heavy, I would have scored it much higher.

Progress
by kncoughlin

Comment by GeneralE:
Perspective distortion (?) on the right bothers me some. I might have tried cropping a square out of this, and put it on a vertical layout with two lines of type below, maybe shortening it to
Walk Slowly,
But Never Backwards