Just Between Usby
jmooreComment by magnon: Hey, and greetings from the Critique Club.
When it comes to fitting the challenge, this image does very well indeed. Technically, you have managed to get the film look you wanted, and that works. As you can see, people comment harshly on noise and softness, but when it was your intention and you went on with that and made it work, I can't say anything on that :)
Composition: The image shows these two people well, and there's no doubt on that they are the main subject. However, I feel that the image is a little tight, and the composition itself doesn't give me a natural point to rest my eye. This doesn't matter so much here because the people are by far the biggest objects in the photograph.
To me, these two are sharing the view of the sea and relaxation after having a bath together. Thus, my thoughts were a 3:2 (instead of 2:3) image that showed some more landscape, although not in focus, it might have solved some of the "heaviness" of your result (totally my subjective personal view :). I'm also a little bothered by the skin patch showing - except after looking at it for a while, it's almost heart shaped.
The in-camera work you've done is of course well. You know what you're doing, focus hits the spot, depth is fine and improves showing the people and not the landscape. Seeing in your portfolio that you're a photographer by profession, it won't be nescessary to say anything on the camera technicals - and I don't have anything to say either!
Your post processing is good. You have chosen a sepia toning for this image, and I think it works well, it makes some more emotion as it feels chilly, and they're warming each other. The noise you have applied throws away some sharpness as you wanted, and it doesn't look too artificial as it can often do when you post-apply it to the image.
As you can tell from what I'm writing, you manage to get emotions channeled from both these people and yourself all the way up to the post-processed photograph. I admire that greatly. As graphicfunk also mentioned, it has a lot of feelings and probably wakes memories, happiness and loneliness - what really makes this shot is that it leaves the viewer to his own mind, you just leave the work to them. Everyone has memories of their best friends through life. In the end, it makes me feel really happy, well done! :)
If you have any comments about this critique, feel free to PM me.
Message edited by author 2005-03-23 15:10:06. 
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