Is simplicity best, or simply the easiest?by
GrigollyComment by KaDi: Greetings from the Critique Club!
This image is an exteme point of view of a common subject. Obviously fun to view as it inspired many commenters to create puns.
It is a simple image. Traditional placement of the object follows the rule-of-thirds. Background is minimized. Depth of field is shallow. What is the "message" of the image? Not sure. Maybe, here is a different way of looking at a pencil.
The angle of view causes the pencil to lean out of the composition, leaving the rest of the image there for balance. The shadows fall out of the edge as well making me wonder what's over that way. I wonder if this would have been just as successful with a square crop.
I agree with the several commenters that the point of the pencil could be in focus. At f 4.0 it seems you mus have been rather close to limit the depth of field so much. It appears there were 2 directional light sources--this flattened the pencil to the degree that the third side which should have been partially visible is lost. At an exposure of 4 seconds, the light source couldn't have been very strong--at that sort of exposure time you risk losing important details (such as along the edges of the knife sharpened pencil lead).
Overall a fun and well-recieved image. A good study piece that has potential for further experimentation. And, to answer the question in the title, simplicity is neither best (the image did not win and the winner was not simple) nor the easiest...it is always difficult to pull of an image with few details, to make it convicing as a subject and to control every technical aspect such that you will receive no complaint.
Keep shooting!
--kadi
Photographer found comment helpful.