rice 'n nutsby
GotakaComment by atupdate: Hello from the Critique Club,
First, let me congratulate you on entering your first challenge. I think you will find that your score will increase as you enter more challenges. You received many comments regarding things that could be different in your image. What are missing are suggestions on how to fix them. Hopefully I can provide a couple.
First, let's start with the yellow color. It appears as if you used a standard light bulb for this image. If that is the case, then you probably had the white balance for your camera set to daylight or maybe even flash. If this was shot under sun light then you might have over saturated the image during post processing. I'm betting it was the white balance, as your shutter speed is pretty slow for sun light. Not knowing what post processing program you have, if you can correct the color temperature to about 3000, you will find that the rice will have a more natural color.
The other major comment you received was about depth of focus. You did a nice job of using a shallow depth of focus to make your image more interesting. However, the depth of focus is the only thing in this image that captures the viewer's attention. The table top makes for a busy background and the arrangement of the rice and nuts doesn̢۪t have much excitement about it. Maybe if you put the rice and nuts into a plain bowl and found a way to make the lighting a bit more dramatic (maybe light it from one side only or directly above), the shallow depth of focus would add to your image instead of being the main subject of the image.
Feel free to send me a PM if you have any questions regarding this critique. Now that you have your feet wet, keep entering challenges. I look forward to seeing your next entry.
Tim
PS: I'm originally from Saginaw
Photographer found comment helpful.