Philipsby
boguloComment by SJCarter: *Greetings from Critique Club*
(Grüße von der Critiqueverein)
First of all, I've read all the comments below and tried to get more info from your profile and portfolio (thus the translated greetings - I hope it's pretty close to correct, my German is a little rusty). :-) As this is your first challenge entry, I can understand that you don't have a lot of other work posted yet.
I think based on the comments below that many of the voters didn't 1) see that it was in fact a flathead screw, 2) think that the phillips head screwdriver was obsolete (since that is what was referenced in the title), or 3) believe that flathead or phillips head technology was obsolete. As someone who has personally done a lot of handyman work myself, I completely got the connection. Flathead screws are very much on the way out (if not completely obsolete) because phillips head screws are so much easier to work with (better grip, strip less, etc.). There's nothing more frustrating than going to remove a screw with a phillips head screwdriver and finding that the screw is a flathead.
Anyway, long story short - I think this met the challenge well.
Composition
Good. I like the placement of the subjects and the crop. I think they were effective. However, I do believe that a different color background might have served your purposes better, because of the silver/white on white.
Lighting
A bit harsh (IMHO). Because of the white background, you lost a lot of DOF (that I think is really there, just hidden by blown highlights). I think you could reduce some of the glare via processing.
DOF
Good in foreground, but I don't think that enough of the screwdriver was in focus to convey the depth you were going for. I still like the faded DOF, I just think that a little more on the screwdriver would have served you better.
All this being said, I don't think that technically this shot is bad at all. It was the "idea", "title", and "presentation" that the voters seemed to take points off for (people's eyes are drawn to the screwdriver first, follow the line down to the screw, and then the white against white prevents them from noticing that it is a flathead screw). Whether they were correct or not (and obviously many of them were not based on their comments), the fact that "they" thought so, means that you didn't effectively get your point across.
I'm looking forward to seeing your next challenge entry and to seeing some shots in your portfolio, as I can tell you have a very good eye for composition and detail. In time, you'll learn what people here respond to and what they don't. And don't feel bad, my first entry finished much lower than this! :-)
Just my 2 cents...
Tschuess für jetzt,
Jimmy
