At last! I've caught a ride!
by kposey

Comment by bod:
A fairly dull shot. The subject is dead centre in the frame which doesn't work for me, and the background doesn't add much to the shot.
I would have cropped a lot tighter into the hitch-hiker, probably in portrait format, keeping him to the right of the frame.

At last! I've caught a ride!
by kposey

Comment by nathaliedoo:
Fun!

At last! I've caught a ride!
by kposey

Comment by GeneralE:
Hope it's not with some wacko who can't spell...

At last! I've caught a ride!
by kposey

Comment by Slimharpo:
where exactly is waco

At last! I've caught a ride!
by kposey

Comment by connie:
Cool shot....

At last! I've caught a ride!
by kposey

Comment by Azrifel:
Try not to center your subjects in the frame. Include more of the road or make a tighter crop with less air.
Save it at a higher quality level, the jpeg artifacts ruin this image. :-(

At last! I've caught a ride!
by kposey

Comment by nds:
Really great idea! But unfortunately the bearing of your model looks (IMHO!) not very nice. When a person is walking try to shoot exactly in the moment, when both legs are on the earth. Otherwise they look mostly like a stork ;-). The use of the rule of thirds probably would have been helpful too.

Time In Motion
by kposey

Comment by stephan:
Hello Ken, your photo was assigned to me in context of the Critique Club. So here we go:

Composition: Very strange cropping ;-) You cut the upper and the lower part of the clock which doesn't look good. Unfortunately I can only guess what you wanted to achieve because you didn't enter any details. Probably you wanted to concentrate on the pendulum. If so then I think you should have zoomed in much more. There is a lot of empty space which does not add something to the photo. But I agree with the people from previous comments that a portrait format would look better here.
Also try a different angle. I think a photo from the side would have been much more interesting.

Lighting/Colours: I personally don't like the lighting. Using the camera built-in flash directly at the subject makes the photo look a quite dull. Also, because of the straight on angle you used you don't see much shadows. This makes the photo look very flat and removes and depth from it.
Switch off the (probably automatically used) flash and use lighting from the side. Maybe a lamp you place there. You proobably will have to use a tripod then because you'll need a longer exposure time.

Focus: Most people used a motion blur effect to actually show the motion. A longer exposure time would have helped with that, too.

Art: Well, I think one reason why the photo scored so low is that it doesn't convey motion very good. In my opinion a motion blur on the pendulum would have looked good here. Maybe you'll try to reshoot the photo?


Stephan

Time In Motion
by kposey

Comment by Gracious:
Greetings from the critique club!

Because the pendulem is not straight down, this shows motion, and so it definetly meets the challenge. The subject is a nice object too, and it would have been fine to show more of it.
The lighting is bright enough, and the focus is clear. As you have already heard by now, it would have been much better to show the whole clock.

Grayce aka Gracious

Time In Motion
by kposey

Comment by wingy:
I don't understand the framing of this shot. The clock is centered horizontally yet fills only the middle third of the frame. Vertically the top of the clock is cut off. Taking this shot with a portrait orientation might have been a good idea, or else an off center subject placement might have helped. This shot still needs something else to give it some oomf though, as it currently comes off as a rather dull shot. A unique angle, framing, or close up could all help create a less generic appearance. 2