Heart of the House Partyby
dragorComment by Artyste: Hello, and greetings from the Critique Club. The critique you are about to recieve is tailored for DPC challenges alone, and is not intended to be seen as an artistic critique per se.
Initial Thoughts
Hard to determine what this is.. the perspective is there, but difficult to see.
Composition / Content
One of the thins I like about this photo is the composition. It's clever, and a little out of the ordinary. The composition alone, had all the rest of the elements added up, would have sent you on your way to a higher score here. As for content, the choice of a DJ spinning table is good, but like you said, the rest of the clutter is not. On a personal level, or artistic level, the bags of food and the junk laying about might have a story to tell, or whatever.. but for a DPC challenge entry, all it really conveys is, "I didn't care enough to take my time". This is almost always death for a DPC image.
Background
The fade out was a little too quick into out-of-focus I think, and the blur doesn't help the clutter you see back there enough.
Camera Work / Technical
For an image as tight as this one, with little viewing area, the shallower DOF probably worked against you. It just creates an illusion that the whole scene is entirely out of focus. Also, the darker exposure adds to this, making the entire scene hard to really see in the first few seconds (critical area for voters.. you really have to smack it to them in the first few seconds sometimes). Either jump up the ISO, open the shutter for longer, or find a faster lens for indoor low-light shots like this.. or get a much deeper DOF (and clean up a touch.. takes a few seconds to do) to sharpen everything up a little better.
Digital Processing
No information given, so I cannot comment much about this area. However, were I you, I'd have brought up the levels more and done a little bit of color balance to minimize the yellow/red cast.
Fits the Challenge
It fits, but the perspective is hard to see and sort of hidden to my eyes.. especially initially. That initial look can be crucial, and I imagine contributed to even lower scores.
My Opinion of the Photo
A great start compositionally.. this photo was just hounded by too many more negative aspects. Too dark, too blurry, too cramped, off-color.. etc.. that voters really like to nit-pick about, and one can't really blame them. I think it had a lot of potential, you just needed to put a little more time, effort, and thought into it. It's a rare spontaneous photo that does well on DPC. Good luck in future challenges.
Photographer found comment helpful.
