simplicity
by Winterberg

Comment:
Critique Club- Your eyes are the most striking element in this photo. They are well captured and seem to stare right at me. Your use of shadows really keep the attention on your eyes. From my understanding of portrait photography, having the eyes on the top thirds line is recommended, so I think cropping just enough off the top so the eyes are in the thirds position might have made this a stronger entry. I think I would also crop enough off the left hand side to center your face a little more.

Overall, I thought this was an excellent portrait.

Glassman
by gudbjargarson

Comment:
Critique Club-Nice thoughtful photo. Works very well in black and white. I have mixed feelings about the negative space. I think the composition might have been improved slightly if your face was sitting more in the thirds position - it feels like it is sitting more on the 1/4 line - so if it had been just a little further to the right in the frame, I think it would have been a stronger entry.

The other suggestion I would have for improvment would have been a slightly different angle to the face to avoid the "double eye" around the glasses. You don't have a true profile because I can see just a little of the eyeglass frame that is over the other eye.

But it is a good shot and is a good portrait.

Pink a Plate o' Peppers, Please?
by Bear_Music

Comment:
Critique Club - While this is a very centered composition, it is pleasing. The pink peppers don't seem a realistic color to me for this type of pepper (being from Central Texas I see a lot of these in real life). However, your arrangement of them is artful, your focus is sharp, and depth of field perfect. I also like the glow from the white plate they are sitting on - gives it a "grounded" feel. Interesting take on the challenge.

Back light
by Pixelstate

Comment:
This one is stunning! I really like how well the sides of the glass mirror each other. From a composition standpoint- great use of lines the edges of the glass really lead your eye through the photo. Great use of lighting and color! Great job!

A "light" Champagne
by wetland

Comment:
Critique Club- Your composition here is very nice - your glass is nicely offcentered and the lines from the laser light help lead your eye through the photo. I also like the way background flows from the blue into the reds. Very nice job!

Three cars versus Three Stop Lights
by roonie

Comment:
Critique Club - The streaks around the car lights are a form of lens flare. And in ths photo I actually like it, it helps create diagonal lines that encourage your eye to explore the frame. They also help connect the cars to the traffic lights. Whereas there are some other minor distracting elements - the windows and the building to the right of the cars, it definitely gives me the feel of being in the city at night. Using a layer of Selective Color adjustment (choosing Black as your color to adjust) in photoshop might have enabled you to darken out some of these distracting elements while retaining the strong light images of the cars, traffic lights, and the city street lights in the background.

3 Down
by Jeff O

Comment:
Critique Club - From a technical standpoint, you have done a nice job with a shallow depth of field and the colors are vibrant. In terms of composition, you have some nice diagonal lines that do help keep your eye moving through the frame. In terms of meeting the challenge, there are definitely three objects . . . However, I don't think I can picture the story these cans might be trying to tell-it doesn't grab my attention.

DPC: three enthusiastic thumbs up!
by LevT

Comment:
Critique Club - I think your concept for this photo was excellent. You have great exposure and good focus. I like the arrangement of the hands - a simple elegant composition. However, your lighting picked up a face, and lettering on someone's shirt. These extraneous things pull my eye away from the emphasis on the thumbs. I agree with the suggestion that some black material draped over the arms, faces, and shirts would have made this a cleaner composition. In photoshop, you could have done a layer of "Selective Color" and using the black as your selected color darkened out the background- which would probably have been cleaner than cloning it.

A building of two halves
by tazza

Comment:
I really like the architecture of this building - has such a great use of line, shape, and texture. I like the mix of blues and browns, and the texture provided by the items on top of both sides of the building.

As far as composition - none of your "vertical lines" are truly vertical. You have a perspective issue that complicates the situation -common in architectural photography. If this were my shot, I would do one of two things.

Suggestion 1: Choose an area of the photo roughly in the middle, in this case where the shadow line makes such a big difference in lighting slightly to the left of center. I would rotate the image such that the vertical line here is truly vertical in the frame and the horizontal area there should be level with the bottom of the frame. At this point you could leave it as it is.

or

Suggestion 2: Do step one and then do a perspective correction in photoshop by "selecting all" and then pulling the upper corners out just enough to make the outside walls vertical. Then do a final crop.

I also think you were fighting lighting here . . part of the building is in the sun, part partially shaded, and the far left much deeper shade impacts the quality of the photo. Perhaps a curves adjustment in photoshop could lighten that darkest area.

Aarhus town hall and its tower (designed by Arne Jacobsen, 1942)
by visaksen

Comment:
Critique Club

I really like the beautiful stone used in the construction of this tower. I also like the use of color in this photo, because the blue sky makes a dramatic background and contrast which enhances the color of the stone. You had a wonderful sky to work with - great blue.

In terms of composition, I think I would have cropped so that all of the balcony at the bottom was visible rather than "chopped off'. I think I also would have either included more of the left side of the building or cropped all of it out. I think in the original shoot, I would have shot this at several camera angles - one where the right side of the building was squared with the frame, one where the windows were squared (which would still give you the perspective of the lines converging as they get higher), and perhaps one from further away to give a better sense of the height of the tower.