Intense Frettingby
RanklesComment by strangeghost: Greetings from the Critique Club
by strangeghost
COMPOSITION
Unusual viewpoint and very close presentation are the strong points of this composition. Weaknesses are the very blown area on the lower right, underneath the neck of the guitar. Less troublesome are the soft blurry objects visible in the upper left. The angle of attack is interesting, as the guitar strings and fret bars make interesting intersecting lines throughout the photo. The way the strings converge in the upper righthand corner is attractive and gives the photo a well balanced feel.
TECHNIQUE
My two chief complaints are the shallow depth of field and the reflective glare left by the position of the light source. The shallow dof leaves only the center portion of a few strings sharply focused near the center of the photo; everything closer or farther away is blurred. This would not be a bad thing in many photos where, for instance, there is an object of interest at the focal plane which the shallow dof can lead the eye to. I think this subject needs a greater dof, accomplished by jacking the f-stop as small as possible, or more ideally, backing the camera off a little and using the greatest available zoom to macro in on your composition. Keeping the fret-boards, wood-grain, and strings in the sharpest focus possible would have given this photo a lot of zing, IMO. Lighting a subject like this is tricky. Usually, diffuse sources are best; softboxes, or bright lights behind a sheet, or reflected off a white board/wall/ceiling, etc.
OVERALL IMPACT
The result you've achieved with this photo does have a very high contrast appearance, but the various elements have a haphazard feel and probably don't present enough initial visual appeal to make the average voter stop and stare. Your score of nearly 5.2 is around average, but probably left you feeling a bit frustrated. The voters who bothered to comment generally liked your photo (though some mentioned some of the points I've raised), but you probably got a lot of quick "vote 5 and move on" responses.
Keep working on the composition and technical elements. You've clearly got a good eye. I enjoyed studying your photo for this critique!
Photographer found comment helpful.
