Always Hanging On By A Thread Of Faithby
peterComment by ericwoo: Hey there from the Critique Club
First off, congratulations on your new personal best, and by nearly a full point. Fantastic, and well deserved.
Camera Work/Technical: Near-flawless. Your primary area of focus is directly on that left eye, and exactly where it should be. Your relatively shallow depth of field also creates a very tender feeling with the image, as well as puts the crucifix well into focus. You captured a nice tonal range although I'd like to see this one with a bit more contrast. That is more personal preference than a criticism, though.
Lighting: Your choice to light her from the side produced some terrific shadows that also serve to add to the feeling of your image. My only change would be to back you lighting off of her face just a bit more to avoid blowing that right cheek out. It blends right into her nose and is just a bit distracting to the eye.
Composition/Content: Your composition and content are both amazing for this particular capture. Images with religious tones are hard to place on here, and they seem to span the gamut of scoring. Personally, I try to avoid religion and religious discussions, and I am not a big fan of what I view as diverting from complete self-reliance. HOWEVER, this one even tugs on my heart. The contrasting of what my mind understands as reality comes close to pulling a tear out of this generally poor attitude. You took the innocence of childhood and managed to combine it with the thought that all hope has been lost. What could this child have going on in that little head to have lost all hope? Terrific image, and well scored, in my opinion. Her expression is priceless and you nailed exactly the mood your were looking for. Again, amazing.
My Opinion: Without detracting from the winners of this challenge, I like this one A LOT better than five of the images that scored ahead of you. Saying that, I think that the voters really missed this one. You were probably penalized (especially those 1s, 2s, and 3s) for including religion in your work. As I said, I am no fan of religion, but this would have surely been one of the very few 9s or 10s that I hand out. Wonderful image, and well scored. You should have ribboned in my mind. The only thing that I dislike altogether is the title. Luckily, I rarely look at the titles when voting. Given a specific challenge, I think that you should be able present a title to me without words below the image. Very, very well-done!
Thank you for the opportunity to provide a critique on your entry,
Eric
Photographer found comment helpful.
