Teenage
by Joey Lawrence

Comment:
Very cool shot and very well executed. The lighting on her face is fantastic. My only nitpick is that it would have been nice to have the whole circle complete and not cut off at the bottom.

Heavenly Garden
by Bosborne

Comment:
Hello from the critique club,

Just to get it out of the way, I think that your score reflects many people's opinion that a close-up flower shot does not meet the theme of the 'holy places' challenge. I really have no opinion on this. If it said holy place to you, that is good enough for me.

To comment on the actual photograph, I like your composition here very much. Leaving a little more petal in the lower right hand corner would make it conform more to the rule of thirds, but I like it the way that it is. I love the lines that the petals make. Some very elegant geometry. I like the choice of black and white. Youhave a nice range of tones.

The image seems fairly soft overall. That may have been the feel you were going for. I think that at least the center part ofthe flower could be sharper.

Please feel free to pm me if you have any questions about my comments.

Cheers,
Liza

Siblings
by bucket

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club,

What an interesting and creative image I drew to critique. I really like this one.

I think this unconventional framing and composition of this image really makes you stop to study it and think about the moment that has been captured. I like the way the camera angle is on the boys' level and how it is cropped so close. It concentrates the viewer on the expression and interaction between them. I especially like the way only the eye and wrinkled nose on the older boy is shown. I like how the baby is higher up than his older brother. The whole image really tells a story. It is very engaging. WEll done.

A small nitpick about the crop is how the ear of the baby is a little distracting and leads my eye towards the edge of frame. THe larger negative element in this image is the background. It is too high contrast and busy, which is very distracting especially becuase it takes up the middle of the frame. Maybe burning it down and/or blurring could help with this.

I love commenting on a free study, because I don't have to address how well the image met the challenge!

Please feel free to pm me with any questions about my comments. Excuse the typos :)

Cheers,
Liza

the last dance
by gaston

Comment:
Hello from the critque club,

What a beautiful image I drew to comment on. Here are my thoughts...

I love the pose in this shot. Not just the obvious ballerina pose, but the tilt of the head with the eyes looking up at you really sets the mood. The lines of her body are engaging and beautiful, both the long lines of her arms and legs and the more subtle ones such as her jawline and neck.

You did a great job keeping detail in the blacks here. I normally would like to see more separation from the background when doing black on black, but here I like the way she melts into the darkness. It makes her hands and her face really stand out. The side lighting is very nice for modeling her face. You did a very good job of getting enough light to the shadow side of her face to make the left eye clearly visible. She is broad-lit, meaning that the light is hitting the side of her face closest to the camera. Portraits, especially women, are usually short-lit (with the light hitting the far side of the face). I think it would have been more dramatic to have a little more of her face in shadows by tilting her head to the other side and having turn her head a bit to her right instead of her left. It would suit the mood that you have created here.

There seems to be quite a bit of grain, especially in the floor, but I think the graininess works for the image. I imagine the light level was fairly low. I like the vignetting on the floor.

For the challenge, I am guessing this wasn't obviously photojournalistic enough to get a higher score than you did. For me, it captures a moment for this dancer and tells a story about her. It is a lovely image and well captured.

Please feel free to pm me if you have any questions about my comments.

Cheers,
Liza

Balloons
by care

Comment:
Hello from the critique club,

I see that this is your first dpc challenge. Welcome! I think this is a very good first entry. Well done. Good luck on many mroet o come.

I like this entry very much. It fits the challenge perfectly. The colors are great. The blue and orange are vibrant without looking overprocessed.

The most striking part of the image is the composition. I love the way the balloons fill the upper corner. The line of the hand and the string draws your eye right up to the balloons. I like the negative space left in the background. It makes the composition not too busy.

I think I would have rotated the image clockwise so that the hand was coming out of the corner of the frame (or close). I think that the lines would have beena little stronger this way. A minor detail. I also would like to see just a little bit more of the arm.

It is hard to tell if this is a studio shot or if it was taken against a bright sky. If the background is meant to be pure white, it would have been helpful to light the other side so that it is evenly white. Many commenters felt that you were blowing out a blue sky here. If that is the case then I agree that it would be nicer to see more blue. A tough exposure, though.

I didn't vote in this challenge, but I would have given this image a 6 for its originality and playfullness and its excellent intpretation and execution of the challenge.

Please fee free to pm me if you have any questions about my comments.

Cheers,
Liza

Keys behind your sterio
by brokechic8

Comment:
I like your angle and composition. I think it would work better for me if the focus point was closer to the foreground.

Fallen.
by Brooke

Comment:
Hello from the critique club,

I see this is your first challenge, so welcome to DPC. This entry didn't do very well, but I hope that doesn't discourage you from contributing more in the future.

Here are my comments of your image.

I think the complementary colors you are going for are blue and orange. As most of the comments you got mention it was too much of a stretch for the challenge, which is the biggest reason it did so poorly. Although present, the blue and orange are not dominant enough in the image to fit into 'complementary colors'

I like the textures that you have found here. There is alot going on visually. My eye is mostly drawn between the window, the heater and thebig hole in the ceiling. It is kind of a haphazard composition, but it is a haphazard subject, so it seems to fit.

I wonder if you could have found a more interesting angle from which to shoot this. Maybe kneeling down shooting up so the heater is in the foreground and the hole is above it in the background? I think a more dynamic angle and perspective would 'tell the story' of this scene more effectively.

Good luck in future challenges! Please feel free to pm me if you have any questions about my comments.

Liza

Naturallly Complemented
by ericwoo

Comment:
Hello from the critique club,

You have already received many very helpful commments. I considered this for awhile before going on to read what others had to say, so I hope that I can add something to the discussion.

My favorite part about this image is the composition. I love all of the diagonal lines and the shape of the red leaves. I like how the red flower cuts into the frame from one direction and the green leaves form lines in the opposite direction. I like how the longest red flower/leaf comes all the way across the very bottom of the image. It keeps my eye from trailing out the bottom of the frame and sends me looking back upwards. The weakest part of the composition, as you know, is the blank space of the window.

It feels like there is a bit of an upward camera angle, which I like here. Kind of like the greenery is towering above the viewer. Maybe this could have been exagerrated with an even steeper angle? Could you have gotten even closer to the base and really shot up at it?

As you mention in your comments there is some significant loss of detail in both the reds and the greens. THis may be from your exposure or your processing, I am not sure. More detail and contrast in the leaves and flowers would give the image more texture and depth. I like the highly saturated colors, though. I think it works for this image (although it probably contributed a bit to the detiail loss).

For the challenge, the mix of red and green is bang on. I didn't vote in the challenge, but I would have given this a 6. I think it can be very hard at a place like a botanical gardens to separate all of the intense visuals of flowers and plants and find the photograph lurking within. This is a very well seen shot that meets the challenge well, but with some technical limitations.

Please feel free to pm me if you have any questions about any of my commets.

Cheers,
Liza

Cascadilla at Dusk
by cresus

Comment:
I think some more midtone contrast in the water could make the waterfall really pop. The image itself has good dynamic range, but somehow the water looks a bit flat. That may have been the effect that you were going for, I realize. Nice composotion. I like how you shot at an angle instead of straight on and how you included the top of the arch in the frame.

Signs of Spring
by DigitalVita

Comment:
I love the detail that you have captured in the texture of the perals. The composition works very well, too. I feel like this is too flat and a little underexposed. Adding some contrast in the quatertones/midtones and bringing the highlights up just a bit (so that the brightest white is really white, but not blown out) would make this even better. 7 from me. I think it could have been an 8 or a 9 with a curves tweak.