Dust Bowlby
SJCarterComment by elru21: Greetings from the critique club,
What a cool shot to get to critique. I love this one and I thought it was well suited for the challenge. My challenge in critiquing it will be to find some constructive things to suggest for you.
I love the tones here and the monochromatic feel. I love how contrasty you made it, too. I think both really enhance the mood of the image. The little prairie dog is perfectly sharp and you got great texture in his fur.
My favorite part of the image is the composition. I really like how you broke the rule of thirds and put him so far over in the frame. I think it is especially appropriate for the 'desolation' theme. It draws attention to all of the empty space in the frame that he is facing. In fact, if you had room, I think you could have made this an even skinnier aspect ratio (like 5x7 maybe?) and had even more space for him to look into.
I can't tell exactly what your aperature was, maybe it was F10? You mention gradient blur in your notes, so I am thinking you used the blur to make it look like shallower DOF than you really had. If this was shot at F10, I would suggest opening up more and letting the DOF fall off more naturally. It seems like there is a kind of abrupt transition where you faded the blur in, right about the middle of the frame if I am looking at it right. Maybe my eyes are playing tricks, but it looks a little off to me.
Zoo shots are tough to get a good angle, I know. In a perfect scenario, I would suggest getting a little bit lower for this shot, but that probably wasn't possible.
Really cool shot. In fact, I am adding it to my favorites. Please feel free to pm me if you have any questions about my comments.
Cheers,
Liza
Photographer found comment helpful.
