What Do You See...?by
front_elementComment by KiwiShotz: ::: Critique Club :::
Welcome to DPC Paul and your first Challenge. Now this is one of the more interesting images I've had for critique
First Impression - the most important one:
"Wow, what is that?" It has a slimy octopuss look at one point and then a psychedelic cathederal. Great fun image.
Composition:
The image has got a creepy, slightly sinister feel about it. It really can't conform to any of the composition rules, it is its own rule. That's what is attractive about abstracts. They challenge convention and push the boundaries.
One of the interesting visual tricks I find with this is that you'd swear you are looking at a 3D tunnel into that cabbage. Even though I keep telling myself its flat, the patterns in there just makes it look like a long deep tunnel - very very cool.
Subject:
What can you say about half a cabbage! :) This is a great subject. Quirky is good and as we can see from the comments, it tickles peoples imaginations - as I'm sure you had every intention of doing. Well thought out subject, it takes a good experienced eye to see these everyday things as photographic subjects.
Technical (Colour, focus, and light):
I wasn't sure if the commenters were right about it being slightly OOF so I downloaded it and found that I could sharpen it. I have a feeling that the original is as crisp as the cabbage.
In case you've not picked up what happens with sharpness for the DPC submission size images. A perfectly sharp full sized image that is reduced to 640x will
always need sharpening after reduction. In this case, it looks as if you might have sharpened it beforehand but not after?
The lighting and colour of the image are realy good. There's that slight glistening of moisture which gives it life, perhaps that of an alien lifeform :)
How hard did you push the post-processing? When I did the minor sharpen, there was quite a bit of noise appeared. It's difficult to know if that is the cellular structure of the cabbage or the levels being pushed hard.
To grow its vote?:
There are many subjects and treatments that are fine photographs but are never going to get a huge popular vote. Nor should they, because they would have to be compromised to do so. A 5.7 score is an above-average one, I can only see sharpness as getting you more and only then if it didn't aggraqvate that grainyness
Summary:
Great pic, I loved it. Going out on a limb and pushing boundaries is what doing great art is all about. Well done, we look forward to more from you in DPC.
Brett
Photographer found comment helpful.