E-71 wins again the World Championship of Windsurf
by alexgarcia

Comment by blackenedwhite:
From the CTP MkII
Disclaimer: The following crits are personal opinions, not photographic dogmas. Please see them as suggestions, not claims of mastery nor a show of hauteur.;p

First Impression: 6 or 7, for visual appeal. Also, I can imagine it appearing alongside a windsurf article.

Composition: 4 or 5, because there's too much space behind the sails and too little in front of and above them.
Subject: 6, 'cuz windsurfing rocks. Not a fan of half-naked men images so I'm fine with having them behind the sails(j/k). It would've been another issue had they been doing acrobatics and shit.;p
Technical: 6. I'd say it's a spot-on exposure, if not very very slightly underexposed. The vibrant colors add a lot to the visual appeal. I, however, find the water a tad too green, the sky a tad too flat, and the yellow in the sails a tad too saturated. But that's just me.;)
Improvement: Re-compose to the right and below, tweak the colors, and have explosions in the background(j/k).
Summary: You're the first on the list so you're my first critiquee. I'm a number too short on screws in the head so please do not be offended.;p

Message edited by author 2006-05-08 22:44:03.

E-71 wins again the World Championship of Windsurf
by alexgarcia

Comment by Rebecca:
Ok, I already left a brief comment on this during voting, but I want to touch base for CTP2 and maybe expound a little bit.

The color and clarity on this are gorgeous, and I do like the minimalist feel of the photo, with the sails looking a bit like sharkfins skimming through the water. However, I do still think that for a Photojournalism challenge I would have liked to see something a little more personal. We can't see the surfer behind the sail, and front page photos tend to really focus on the people involved in whatever is going on.

My one complaint with the photo as just a photo is that it feels to me like the sail in the foreground is way too close to the upper border. I think extending the sky up by about 30 pixels would do the trick to make it look more balanced.

E-71 wins again the World Championship of Windsurf
by alexgarcia

Comment by yanko:
Greetings from your own critique club.

First Impression:
Looks professional and very photojournalish

Composition:
Don't really have any issues with it except maybe the lack of space at the top where the sail nearly touches the frame, however I get what you were trying to do (i.e. avoid a perfectly centered horizon).

Subject:
This is my main problem I have. It looks like those things are just floating out there by themselves since the surfers are on the other side of it. That's a shame because I think this would have scored a lot higher if that wasn't the case.

Technical (Colour and light):
No problems here for me. The main subject stands out and is quite vibrant in color so you did everything well to capture that.

Improvement:
Just make the athletes more prominent in shots like this.

Summary:
Excellent photo with just that one flaw. Great accomplishment since this appears to be your first effort shooting with that long a lens.

E-71 wins again the World Championship of Windsurf
by alexgarcia

Comment by Gunnsi:
Comment from a member of your own commenting club :-)
This is a lovely windsurf picture.
Plus:
1. Lovely colours
2. Good frame choise
3. Superb focus on the front boat.
Minus:
1. I would have preferred to balance the picture a bit by cropping differentely. Add more of the sky and cut a bit from the ocean.
For the rules of thirds, have a bit more ocean in the left side.
2. The horizon is horzontal but looks like it isn't because of different sizes of boats. Maybe in this case it would have been better to tilt it a tiny little bit. But then again maybe not :-)

Congratulations on your deserved "over 6"

Message edited by author 2006-05-10 20:25:10.

You can't judge a book by its cover
by alexgarcia

Comment by charleyangel:
cute

E-71 wins again the World Championship of Windsurf
by alexgarcia

Comment by margiemu:
Where was this taken? The water is gorgeous! And it looks like it's warm!
compostion: I would have liked this a bit better if was framed more to the left, so that the winning surfer is sailing into the frame, instead of out of it. Or else a tighter crop on the main windsurfer. All the empty space to the right doesn't really add anything.
subject: Nice enough. It fits the challenge well.
technical: The colors work really well, and the focus seems to be sharp(I need glasses, so I can't really swear that it is Ü)
summary: This is a nice shot, that would have been a great shot if the framing were slightly different.

E-71 wins again the World Championship of Windsurf
by alexgarcia

Comment by Rikki:
Great colors and the movement is great! Too bad the crop is too tight at the top.

You can't judge a book by its cover
by alexgarcia

Comment by azaboi:
Cute!

E-71 wins again the World Championship of Windsurf
by alexgarcia

Comment by Skip:
you're probably getting killed for the border. if not, you should be ;-)

nice shot, but really should be cropped as tightly as possible. one of the key elements of PJ is to fill the frame with as much relevant content as possible; here, all that sky and water is wasted space.

E-71 wins again the World Championship of Windsurf
by alexgarcia

Comment by DefyTime:
Great shot for the challenge