Palistinians go to Work in West Bank and Gaza again
by Gunnsi

Comment by DigiFotoBuddy:
Greetings from your own critique club. As always, the comments are based on my personal opinion about the picture.

First Impression:
Very Nice Silhouette shot.
Composition:
Good composition. The picture is tilted. I don't know if that was on purpose. I would have rotated the photo.
Subject:
I really like the subject, Silhouette effect. But I don't know if it fits the challenge.
Technical (Colour and light):
The lighting is good. The sky color is different, don't know if it's processed. I would have liked orange/yellow evening color beter in the BG.
Improvement:
Rotate the picture, different BG color.
Summary:
Nice picture over all. Rotate the picture, and see if you can do the different color balance.

Edit to add:

The horizon is fine, it's not tilted. Looking at the first site it looked like that, but it's not. My bad.

Message edited by author 2006-05-09 18:30:55.

Driving People Crazy
by Gunnsi

Comment by sittingonthegrass:
This could be movie of the year!

Driving People Crazy
by Gunnsi

Comment by Arti-Elvi:
Lol. I think that it does drive some people crazy :P

Driving People Crazy
by Gunnsi

Comment by DefyTime:
Yes it does!!

The old House by the Sea
by Gunnsi

Comment by blackenedwhite:
From the CTP MkII
Disclaimer: The following crits are personal opinions, not photographic dogmas. Please see them as suggestions, not claims of mastery nor a show of hauteur.;p

First Impression: Dang, this is nice. 6 because the colors're flat and a bit washed out BUT given the right PP, it could hold its ground up there with the big guys.
Composition: 8 here. Because it WORKS. And I know YOU know why it works so no more from me on this regard.
Subject: 6. Not really a fan of this genre, but I think you did good with it.
Technical: 5. Colors are bland and exposure's a bit under. But really, it's nothing a little PP couldn't fix.
Improvement: Nothing (from me) with regards to the shot, a wee bit of dodging and burning and bumping up contrast and saturating AAAND some sharpening for PP.
Summary: It's a good shot, really, with the potential of being a great shot. With proper PP, that is. Aaaaand I'm a number too short on screws in the head so please do not be offended.;p

Palistinians go to Work in West Bank and Gaza again
by Gunnsi

Comment by blackenedwhite:
From the CTP MkII
Disclaimer: The following crits are personal opinions, not photographic dogmas. Please see them as suggestions, not claims of mastery nor a show of hauteur.;p

First Impression: Whoa, 6. It's pretty powerful. With proper pp, it could very well be on the front page of a daily, IMO.
Composition: 6 or 7. Composition's fine with me, even with the tilted horizon (or whatever that is:p).
Subject: 8. Because social realism rocks.
Technical: 5. This is where you screwed up, pare. I don't know if it's too much NI or the JPEG compression but the fuzziness really bugs me. Which was too bad because I liked the almost duotone look of your photo.
Improvement: I guess a little sharpening or a bit more contrast would do the photo a lot more justice.
Summary: I, for one, liked your photo. The less than stellar output is no fault of your photographic abilities, but of your pp skillz. Also, I'm a number too short on screws in the head so please do not be offended.;p

Weekend
by Gunnsi

Comment by cyan:
reflection doubles impact. nice contrast in colors

Palistinians go to Work in West Bank and Gaza again
by Gunnsi

Comment by yanko:
Greetings from your own critique club.

First Impression:
Strong subject. Contrast between the silhouettes and the sky add to the strong theme.

Composition:
The composition is good. It's a little minimalistic but that works well with the early morning aspect.

Subject:
Strong subject however it's difficult placing the subject without first reading the title. Although I have no suggestions on how you could improve that unless there was a landmark nearby that could have been captured in the shot.

Technical (Colour and light):
The lighting and color is good. One issue I do have is there seems to be some "fuzziness" going on around the silhouettes. That may just be jpg compression. If so I would suggest using less compression. Looking at the properties this photo weighs in at just 24k and you are alloted 150k for challenge entries so be sure to utilized as much of that 150k as possible to avoid artifacts.

Improvement:
As I mentioned above, maybe find something that can tie the image more to the title without just relying on the title itself to describe the shot. This one is definitely difficult to do that since there are no faces to identify or unique structures but whenever possible try and do that. Also, utilize the file size you're afforded for the challenges. It does make a difference. Lastly, for an image to do well in DPC it needs a lot of wow factor. Even if this was a photo conveying peace in the Middle East I doubt this would help your score at DPC. At least not as well as a great sunset. So if you shot something like this again and wanted to do better with your score try and get something in that had some interesting cloud cover. That more than anything is what probably held you back in voting.

Summary:
Great take to the challenge. The subject was definitely news worthy.

Hope this was of some help. If you have any questions feel free to PM or email me. I look forward to seeing more of your work!

Message edited by author 2006-05-08 21:48:05.

Palistinians go to Work in West Bank and Gaza again
by Gunnsi

Comment by Rebecca:
Hello Gunnsi!

My first impression when I saw this was that it didn't look much like the West Bank to me, and I couldn't tell what they were returning to work to do. I didn't like that I couldn't see the worker's face, which seemed to me like a rather important thing for a story like this. Putting a human face on the story is absolutely key.

For being such a low-demand image so far as color and detail go, I was surprised to see quality degradation around the man and the more intricate details of the machinery. It doesn't seem like it should be necessary to save it at just a low resolution.

I do like the color, though - the suggestion of early morning is good in a piece like this since it implies a certain honesty and wholesomeness - again that's part of making sure you get humanity in to the photo.

Driving People Crazy
by Gunnsi

Comment by mycelium:
I find the blue monotone to be a bit too sedate to convey "crazy." Also, the model's expression is a bit bland. A wider-open eye looking straight at the camera would have communicated better.