mmmmmmmm...........by
ericwooComment by KiwiShotz: ::: Critique Club :::
Oh this wil be fun because as I said in my vote comment, I'm not familiar with the product and so don't really understand the story being told. I scored it a 6.
First Impression - the most important one:
I rather liked it on my first impression. It looked mysterious, imperious and very upmarket because of the way it is lit. On closer inspection, yes one can see where there are things that could make it even better.
Composition:
The positioning of the bottle is almost on the thirds line, there's not much room for it to move but I would have shuffled to line up with the right hand vertical thirds line. I particularly am impressed by the way the label is turned to face the centre of the frame rather than the camera, that makes quite a difference here. A lot of people on DPC don't like borders, their success lies in their composition with the image and in this case, it works well to balance the heavy black.
Subject:
I'm really sorry that i don't know what it is :) Having said that, others have commented that it is right on for the challenge so I can niftily slide out from undwer that one and move onto what it looks like photographically. The bottle looks regal, slightly upmarket and important. Those are clever things to capture in a simple image like this.
Technical (Colour and light):
You really didn't give us any information in your photographers comments about what you were trying to achieve, what sort of look that you wanted and what was the message that you were trying to send to the viewers. That makes it difficult to comment on here. I could follow others and say its too dark, but if you were to say you were trying for a dark look, then we would be able to discuss how well that was achieved and throw some ideas around on how to do it even better.
So I'm not going to be presumtuous and suggest it be lighter because I'm sure you know how to do that. I'm confident that you wanted it no other way than dark and mysterious. You see, I quite like the way this looks. It isn't like a 'normal' bottle shot, you can't see the edges of it. But the cleverness is that it is quite clearly a bottle and the viewer doesn't 'need' to see the edges to know that. Less is more.
The lighting being full frontal is well controlled because the label is perfectly exposed and I bet in the camera original it is sharp enough to read the bottom label line on it. I can't say it would be better if the light source was off centre because doing so might spoil the effect of what you're trying to communicate. It is generally true though that 60/30deg off to either side might have made it more dramatic, but again, one can't be sure until you try it an see.
Yes, your focus is out goin up the neck to the cap. The label of course is sharp. So what has caught you is the depth of field of the f2.8 setting. To get enough DOF, you might need at least f5.6 for this shot, experimenting will tell. That of course is 2 stops which you have to get back with shutter speed. At 1/50th you could have managed hand-held but any slower would require a tripod .... or ... more light.
To get a Ribbon?:
The voters didn't really like this did they. The focus/DOF was obviously an issue As was the darkness, some commenters assumed that's not what you were intending. It lacked a wow-factor. Wow-factors can be added with light, props, implied drama, shock, surprise, awe, cheek or humour. There are so many variables, that it's not for me to presume to suggest any one of them, just to say that in future look out for them.
Summary:
Perhaps to get around the "too dark" and "snapshot" critisms, you need to make all of the features you strove for to look deliberate. For example, you could change nothing in the bottle lighting but throw the beam of a torch across the back ground to put the bottle into relief and to show that the effect of the image is deliberate. You get the picture.
Glad to have the opportunity, thanks
Brett
Message edited by author 2005-12-09 06:13:57. 
Photographer found comment helpful.
