Candlelight Reflections
by andrea22_als

Comment:
Hello from the Critique Club.

I didn't vote in the Fire II challenge so this is the first time I've taken time to look at your image critically. Overall you chose a very strong subject for this challenge that should have scored higher than the five that it did. This would indicate that there were technical or compositional issues with your image. It is my belief that the primary issue was compositional. My first impression when I looked at your image was "Wow, there is a lot going on in this picture". In your image there are two primary focal points competing for the viewer's attention, the side reflected candles on the left and the back reflected candles on the right. Since the back reflected candles are more aesthetically pleasing than the left reflected candles, this image should have been cropped to eliminate the reflected candles on the left. You might want to consider using a square crop to eliminate the reflections off the shelf as well, as these reflections also compete against the wonderful grouping of candles on the right.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding this critique.

Tim

Small Arms Fire
by NovaTiger

Comment:
Hello from the Critique Club.

I didn't vote on this challenge so this is the first time I've looked at your image critically. I think your score is result of a combination of two things, your subject choice and a couple of technical issues. One commenter mentioned that toys don't do well in DPC challenges. I'm not experienced enough in the DPC ways to confirm that but a toy soldier as the main subject when fire is the assigned subject is not the way to garner high scores. Compositionally, you did a nice job of setting this shot up. The soldier is located in a good location and all of the pieces fit together well. On a technical level there are things that could be improved. You made the right choice on using fill flash to help bring out the details in the soldier. Unfortunately, the soldier doesn't have a lot of detail to begin with and the fill flash was just a bit strong, causing harsh reflections and strong shadows. If you could have used a couple of light sources from the side, preferably as reflected light, the soldier might have come off looking a bit more 3 dimensional. I hope you find something within this critique helpful and feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Tim

Battle of the Elements
by bgrinberg

Comment:
Hello from the Critique Club.

I didn't vote on this challenge so this is the first time I've looked at your image critically. My first impression of this image is "Wow, this has a lot of stuff going on". To the voter, this means that there isn't one true focal point to the image to lock in on visually except for the color. And in this challenge, the color is pretty common. There are a couple of areas within this image that are competing with each other and neither one wins. First, there are the two fire pots on the left. The spacing difference between these two pots and the two on the right make it difficult to choose which group is more important. Second, the pots at the top of the image almost look like they were partially cropped off (Most probably something is blocking the view). Actually cropping the top fire pots might have helped the image but leaving their reflections in the water would have looked odd. When all is said and done, you probably should have simplified the composition by zooming in on just one of the groups.

On the technical side, I agree with the one commenter that you need to use as much of the 150 kb file size as possible. It can only help the quality of your images. Second, it looks like you might have overexposed this image or oversaturated during post processing, as the flames have a strange look to them (blown highlights and flat looking yellow areas).

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding this critique.

Tim

Old Flame
by JacquiD

Comment:
Hello from the Critique Club.

I didn't vote on this challenge so this is the first time I've looked at your image critically. I'm impressed by the number of comments your entry generated. This shows that this image has a lot of character for such a simple subject. It is easy to tell that this is a candle that is actually used and has been for some time. The angle of the wax drippings show that this candle was not repositioned for the challenge. I like that aspect. The one suggestion you could try if you decide to ever shot a similar subject would be to shine some soft light on the body of the candle. This could be from a flashlight or any small light reflected from a distance. What this would do is provide additional light to the image, which would allow you to increase the shutter speed slightly and would produce a bit more detail within the flame. However, for this challenge that might not have improved your score, as it would have given the body of the candle more prominence and the flame might not have be seen as the primary subject. I really do hope you attempt to re-shoot this entry, as this candle could really shine with a little experimentation.

Tim

Dining with the Devil
by PeterPic

Comment:
Hello from the Critique Club.

I didn't vote on this challenge so this is the first time I've looked at your image critically. As shown by your score, you executed your idea pretty well. As shown by the comments, there are a couple of things that could have been done differently to achieve a higher score, mostly the lighting at the stem and base of the wine glass. I really don't have any suggestions on how to better light this image but it would be fun to play around and see what could be done.

I also noticed that the pattern etched into the glass was a love it or hate it proposition. My guess is that your score would not have suffered if it was not there but did just a bit because it was. My own personal opinion is that the etching is a distraction and interferes with the impact of the flame.

The quality of this image would have rated a 6 or 7 in my book, depending how it compared with the other entries. I like this image and I would be proud to have it in my portfolio if I were you.

Tim

100 divided by 3
by Nuzzer

Comment:
Gerry,

I'm not sure I agree with your Post Challenge comment. Three of the comments you received summed it up very well, "Sorry, can't see the relation to the challenge", "I would like to see the lines on the album in better focus", and "Be careful. People may not understand that". The way your image was presented, the "lines" were the secondary subject. By far, the needle and arm are much more prominent and visually, the primary focal point. If I had voted in this challenge I would have given you a 5 because you met the challenge but your subject choice was weak for the challenge description. Coincidentally, that seems to be what the final score for this image ended up being. Hope this helps you better understand the placement of your entry.

Tim

ARORA of the FIRE
by FocusPoint

Comment:
Hello from the Critique Club.

Well Leo, this is the second image of yours I've had the privilege of critiquing. I didn't vote in this challenge, so this is the first opportunity I've had to view your image. On a personal level I love it. The flow lines of the flame truly does remind me of the one and only time I saw the Northern Lights in person.

As for the Fire II challenge, by reading the comments left during the challenge, it is easy to see that those who took the time to study the photo caught your connection to the Northern Lights. However, for some, they did have to read the title to make that connection. As you are probably aware, if they have to read the title, then you probably won't score that well. Plus, your scored suffered from the lack of the infamous DPC wow factor.

On the technical side, the noise and blurriness of the flame effectively creates the feel of the Northern Lights. However, there is a little too much negative space in this image. If you intersect the flames with the right and left border of the image and remove about 2/3 of the dark area at the top, the red portion of the flame become a very strong focal point in the image. Interestingly enough, if you rotate the image 180 degrees with the suggested cropping and bump up the green saturation just a little, the remaining dark area takes on the look of pine trees and the flame really does look like the northern lights behind them. The trouble is, if you submitted an image with my suggestions for this challenge, the voters wouldn't have made the connection to Fire and your score would have suffered from the DNMC crowd.

You took a very simple everyday item and made an image with a lot of artistic potential. I think Imay borrow your idea and give it a try for myself if you don't mind.

Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding this critique.

Tim

water water...Am I the cutest camera?
by honikum

Comment:
Anil,

Per your PM, I’ve taken a stab at your Camera Self Portrait entry (Click on the thumbnail below). Just so you know, the file size was kind of small (99kb), so the results are not a good as if I had the original to work with. First thing I did was to crop the photo so the framing from by the pot was uniform on the left and right side of the image. Second, I adjusted the contrast using Levels. My levels settings for the input were Black 21, Gamma (Middle) 1.6, and White 221. I use Paint Shop Pro X but I think the Photoshop uses the format for levels. I also used USM (Radius 1, Strength 60, Clipping 5) before saving the image. As you can see there is a lot more detail in your face and the camera with this simple adjustment.

As I stated in my PM, I highly suggest you play with the fotomann tutorial for B&W conversion on this image. It works a lot better than desaturation.

Tim

parking
by agenkin

Comment:
Hello from the Critique Club.

Welcome to the world of Does Not Meet Challenge. As you can tell by your score, your choice of subject was not well received. Most of the voters were looking for things that moved. In my case, I gave you a 6, as I thought your entry was rather well thought out and fit the challenge. Interestingly enough, the words on the bike rack, the color of the purple wall and shadow were a strong enough focal points that I didn’t even notice that the bike rack post had blown highlights down the center. Overall, I think you found an interesting view of an everyday object but it just didn’t say Transportation to the majority of voters.

Tim

Growing up in a forest
by photom1946

Comment:
Hello from the Critique Club.

You received a lot of useful comments during the challenge on this image. In summary 1) Small image: the maximum size for images is 640 pixels on the longest dimension. Yours was 416 pixels. 2) Background: the pinecones in the background tend to overpower the impact of the seedlings. You could have easily have removed a couple and not hurt the perspective you were trying to achieve.

I think your score also suffered because seedlings are not the strongest subject for a From The Ground Up challenge. Even if you laid flat on the ground, which it looks like you did, the perspective will be even with the seedlings and not really looking up. The nine 1's and seven 2's you received show that many voters didn't perceive your image as meeting the description of the challenge.

Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding this critique.

Tim