Ohm mani padme hung
by beggs

Comment by e301:
from the depths of the Critique Club

It's always tricky to tackles these deceptively simple photographs. I suppose pretty much everything is as you intended, though I'm not completely sure your thinking was absolutely spot-on. There are a couple of elements that I find uncomfortable viewing: primarily the negative space image left, and the fact that the beads run out of image to the right; and the very brightness of that negative space. Noe before you sit with hands on head condemning me for being a fool and not understanding high-key photography, I should say i do absolutely get your point, and in terms of execution from the high-key standpoint it's absolutely spot-on. I'm uncertain though, that it was the right treatment for the subject.

Partly becuase the beads themselves are so dark, partly becuase it's gone so very far into extreme white and thus extreme contrast, I think it asks too much of the eye. There are many worse shots, however, with better scores, so quite what you did 'wrong' I'm at a loss to say. The depth of field thing was probably an issue - many people dislike that one, I know; and perhaps the composition - you seem to have gone out of your way to make the string the focal point of the image (that shift of the beads as a whole slightly out of frame), and perhaps that makes for a difficulty.

I would have expected a slightly higher score - but perhaps the problem really was that there isn't much to say about it? A competently executed image, but with a couple of weird choices the point of which is difficult to determine? Maybe ...

A new pastime
by beggs

Comment by jmsetzler:
Greetings from the Critique Club...

Hi Beggs :)

There is nothing particularly wrong with this photo as far as composition and execution is concerned. It also meets the challenge. Where I think this photo failed is simply by the fact that it doesn't show any particular strength in the realm of photography itself. There is nothing about it that has visual impact. It doesn't stir any real emotion in me as a viewer. I find myself using this type of comment quite frequently. I may start to sound like a broken record, but I believe that meeting the challenge alone is simply not good ground work for building a great challenge score.

I never owned an Atari. Lots of my friends had Atari and I really wanted one. I managed to bypass the Atari craze and I got an Intellivision. At the time, Intellivision was much better than Atari, but that was soon followed by Colecovision, which was better yet :)

Ohm mani padme hung
by beggs

Comment by rachelellen:
I didn't vote on this one. I'd have probably given it a 5 -- a decently shot photo of something that doesn't really SPEAK to me (remember we couldn't see your comments) but which is visually interesting. I think a slightly greater depth of field might have helped you a bit; if there's some significance to the bit of beadless string (the focal point) I don't know it.

A new pastime
by beggs

Comment by rachelellen:
I liked this a lot -- good composition, good subject, good title. I gave it a 6. I don't know why it didn't fare better. Maybe some people didn't know that those aren't just joysticks you plug into your TV? :)

Ohm mani padme hung
by beggs

Comment by bluenova:
Hi, I didn't get as far as this image in voting, but I think I would have given a 5 or 6.

It's a nice picture, and the composition is good, but it needs more DOF in the front.

I think it's harder to give more than a 6 because the image doesn't say WOW! That doesn't mean it's a bad photo, but for a photo to do well on this site it really needs to stand out from the crowd.

A new pastime
by beggs

Comment by Rikki:
I hope you take my comments as helpful to your pursuit of improvement in photography. My comments are purely based on my observations and not from the prior comments posted to this image.

I think this one suffered from the barrage of 80s memorabilia. The background IMHO doesn't constitute to an exciting image. I think a rotation of the joystick to show the red trigger would have been better. On a pure white background, I think this would have been more successful.

Keep on shooting and imrpovement is always in the horizon.

Cheers,

Rikki

Ohm mani padme hung
by beggs

Comment by DrAchoo:
Personally, I'm not a big fan of the DOF causing both foreground and background to be OOF. I'd prefer one or the other. This is distracting to me especially on the left where we see 3 beads in focus but the ones before and after OOF. I do like the tonality and processing. The string is very sharp and that's good. the composition is good as well. it may be just a tad overexposed (seen in the string and the way the background sorta "invades" the beads on the left.

A new pastime
by beggs

Comment by DrAchoo:
I think the whole challenge was oversaturated with still life shots of 80's paraphenalia. You did a nice job not centering the shot and I do like the selective desat, but there isn't enough interest to really capture us. I gave it a 6. Also think about the background. Here, I'm not sure the pattern helps, especially since it seems to fade in and out of focus.

Ohm mani padme hung
by beggs

Comment by PhotoArt:
Praying for a 10? You've got one from me!

Ohm mani padme hung
by beggs

Comment by stanm2:
very nice - offcenter and string adds a lot