On the Urchin Dietby
RulerZigzagComment by alexzen: Welcome from the Critique Club
Composition
The first thing I notice is that the image appears crooked. Some cropping would help. The large amount of black with no shadow detail detracts from this photo. The place setting is off balance with the bowl causing the centered image to be off balance. Cutting the face off just below the nose bothers me.
Focus and Lighting
The low light made this a difficult shot seeing that you needed 3 seconds to expose the image. Some lighting would really help this shot. The face is not clearly in focus and the long exposure probably did not help. The only part of this image that appears to be in focus is the bowl and that is not the main subject.
Post Processing
A few things that could help this image: It needs a well-lit, sharply rendered main subject. The urchin is trying to be that. You could burn and dodge the urchin, and selectively sharpen it to make it really pop out.
For advanced editing you should try to clean up unwanted smudges and distracting backgrounds. There is something going on on the right edge that could be cloned out.
Overall the image appears too dark. If it does not appear dark to you, then check your monitor calibration. For a long while I ran my monitor too bright and discovered that all of my photos that I thought were bright and cheery were displaying too dark on other people's, properly calibrated monitors.
If you have any questions please feel free to use the PM system
Ken
alexzen
Photographer found comment helpful.
