Golden Pearsby
kathleenmComment by stephan: Hello kathleenm! This is a critique I do by assignment of the "Critique Club" currently forming here on DPC. Just in case you wonder why you get a comment so late ;-)
Composition: One of the things I learned is that photos almost always look better when you keep them simple and concentrate on a detail instead of showing too much of a scene. But this is the case here. The photo looks very crowded and cluttered with different objects.
Because the front pear is out of focus and the left pear is only seen halfway the viewers eye is guided to the pear in the middle. So that seems to be the primary object and the subject of the photo. But as soon as the viewer accepts the one pear as "the" subject the other objects distract from it. Especially the crystal grapes in the background.
So at first I would have tried to concentrate on either the crystal grapes or the pears, or even just one of the objects. This especially makes sense in a macro challenge where everybody expects a very closeup photo (not meaning you have to go "mainstream" and do what people expect ;-)).
Another thing which I count in to "composition" are the following two observations: The photo looks a bit unbalanced. This is due to the angle you used, but I think the area in the upper left corner looks very empty.
The second observation is a merger of the middle and the left pear. Because of the lighting and because they are so close together they look as if "grown" togther. I think that's not so good although it's only a minor issue.
Lighting: In your photo details you said, that you used natural sunlight as your lighting. Personally I think that sunlight can be one of the best light sources in photography, but in your photo it's not visible that it really is sunlight. Actually it looks a bit unnatural, although I can't really say why. What I would love to see is some kind of sparkling because the objects are made of glass. This would add some "wow" to the photo and would show that you actually used the sunlight. E.g. try to let the sunlight come from behind the subject. I like the colouring of the pears. I would have worked a bit more in that direction to stress that, e.g. by using a more complementary colour like blue, red or purple in the background or otherwhere to accentuate your subject.
Focus: I looked up the specs for the Powershot G1 and it says the smallest aperture is f/8. So I think the "19" you entered was a typo of some kind. That said I think your aperture is too wide, because the DOF is a bit too narrow. At least it doesn't cover the pear in the front. I don't see why the one pear in the middle should be in focus while the other one not. They both look the same and there is no other characteristic which would make them different. That's why I don't see much point in your DOF. But I see that in macro mode it's really difficult to get a wide DOF.
Art: I think you showed some creativity by taking a different approach instead of the flower or bug photos you usually see in macro shots. I also think you fulfilled the challenge topic.
Overall I don't really like the photo that much and I think you did better ones already. But please keep in mind that this is my personal opinion only. Anyway, I hope my feedback helps you understanding why I think the photo could be done better.
Cheers,
Stephan
Photographer found comment helpful.