Bonsai Kai: November Cotoneaster
by Imagineer

Comment:
From the Critique Club

Now here's a thing, my friend: haven't written a club critique for some time, and look who pops up for my first one back.

I wondered, as I voted, whether this was a shot of yours (simply from knowing your bonsai enthusiasm) - I think, if memory serves, that I decided it wasn't, as it seemed far too straightforward to be your work.

The light is decidedly regular for a 'painting with light' process - perhaps too regular? It has, largely, the feel of a simple, well-lit image, and there is little to give away the technique, and perhaps little that really benefits from the technique: one would hope for more high-lighting, more emphasis, more effect, in simple terms. There are of course areas where the use of light shows - the dappled nature of the moss (?) in the pot, a slightly organic sense to some of the light across the leaves: but i think this might have benefited from a more radical use of the method, more light and shade, perhaps.

As an image, without knowledge of the techniques, it seems to me little more than highly competent studio work. The blacks are black, the highlights add definition and three-dimensionality just where one would want them. The colours are strong, well-organised. The composition is fine - you've chosen a strong angle from which to shoot the tree. The balance of the red berries and the blue pot makes for a satisfying counterpoint to the profusion of green. The detail is all present, and the processing is accurate and precise, and well controlled. The subject - and as you know i know little of the way of bonsai - seems like a good example. That kind of purity of form and structure would be as I would imagine a fine bonsai to need to be. And of course, in terms of the challenge, the berries add a suitably seasonal note.

The score? Well, I don't know. It seems to me we're in the grip of one of dpc's periodic dalliances with the cute and with the blatantly dramatic, and with photography magazine images. There was a time when a shot such as this would garner a deserved 6.2, or .3. Never winning, unless you happened to have hit on some bizarre magic formula, but at least garnering the kind of high average score that such competent work deserves. I mean - look at the results from this challenge.

That said, there is grounds for considering those shots as suitable winners. Isn't the cute, the blatantly dramatic, and magazine photography just exactly what the calendar compilers would put together to find a big seller? It left difficult open territory as a challenge: those who put out a bit further, who avoided the mass market, were marked down for it, as far as I could tell. This of course, was a perfect calendar shot - as was, for instance, Tony Wright's shot. Both of you scored in a similar region.

But I know that's not your concern, really. It is, however, a fascinating area of study :-)

My final judgement on this shot would be (and what's the point of a critique if not to pass judgement? Oh, the power...): Documentary, and certainly so by your standards.

All the best

Ed

October
by agwright

Comment:
This is, and I must point out that I didn't get to vote on every shot, the most ideal 'calendar' photo i've seen in the challenge. Clever work - exactly the kind of representative, season-specific shot that one would expect, exactly the saturation, exactly the feel. My only gripe would be with the amount of sky - it gives a slight feeling of missing something to the composition. I can see your reasons, with that slight feel of clouds there to add some interest, but I think you've sacrificed more to get that in that you have won from including it. But excellent work: it should be exactly this orthodox, ordinarily 'classic' photography: I think you perhaps got marked down for getting it too right.

Fall Scene
by jjbeguin

Comment:
The curve in the reflection nicely quotes the Water Lillies, and I do like the array of tones in the fallen leaves. Photographically, I find it a touch too washed out as it moves up the image: I think you perhaps had enough here to speak of 'impressionism', without that extra push, be it from natural light or from processing. I don't know that I wouldn't have warmed the colour temperature of the whole thing a little either - it just has a slightly cold feel to it, slightly too far to blue.

But it works for the challenge, nicely, of course. The drfit, as the eye rises, from a genuinely photographic feel into a world of paint-like appearance (and a world I fully expect to see over-used in this challenge), makes a subtle point. Enjoyable.

October
by Tressider

Comment:
Lacks the punhc, the highly orthodox standard photographic approach to landscape that I'd expect of a calendar. A good enough scene, in itself, and in your chosen composition (although I think a more draatic cloudscape would be effective), but the light is not great - no sense of shape to the mountains, no warmth, and a sense of the image being cropped too high. You've done well howeever, to place the horizon strongly in frame, and to find those parallele shapes of tree-line and hills. Close - but it needs to be more imposing, to my eye.

November
by geewhy

Comment:
This looks like Gordon Whyte's trick with NI - most specifically in the resultant texture of those leaves. I can go with the kind of soft/non-soft feel of it for a calendar shot, but I'm not great fan of it photographically, I'm afraid. It'll garner a 6 though, for aptness, at least.

January
by caba

Comment:
To me, this seems like the photographic equivalent of a sketched idea for a shot - 'how about we set this thing up, you know, gloved hands, bowl of soup' kind of thing. Your execution leaves an awful lot to be desired, I'm afriad. The questions it throws up for me: the colour structure of it - black gloves, muted purple fleece, red cup? Was there no more coherent structure you could have found? The lighting - simple on-board flash is soblunt, so head-on, leaves those strong and ugly shadows, and doesn't have the angle or the softness to add grace to the scene. The composition and the set-up: was it really better to have gloved hands anyway? Was a completely symmetrical composition so very effective - would it perhaps not have been more effective to show more of the person? Did the contents of the bowl have to be quite so ugly-looking - and certainly not warming in appearnace? wouldn't captureing the steam coming off that bowl have given a greater sensation of coldness in the air than is implied simply by gloved hands?

I appreciate that this is a 'real' scene - but photography of the 'real' is not necessarily a matter of simply finding a moment that is so blatantly representative and shooting it any old how.

April 25, 1974 (Carnation Revolution)
by Discraft

Comment:
The very irreality of this makes it a strong shot - the unlikeliness. I'm not a huge fan of it, Iwould have changed a number of things, mostly the dirtiness and graininess of the background, but I can see absolutely where you're coming from and what you have achieved. I'm certain you'll be knocked by the unthinking for that vase/shadow, although it is essential to my eye, and for the non-blatant calendar reference. I hope it finds it's audience, it deserves to have fans, this shot. 7

November
by JohannesFrank

Comment:
Despite that frame, which is actually only distracting for me when one remembers to consider it, i rather like this image. You've captured that high white sky feeling of autumn without resorting to the usual medley of burnt orange colours, yet indisputably this is an autumnal image. it has that sense of peace, of the beginnings of rest after the rush and hurry of the glory of summer. Very good work.

No bugs or flowers? AW... NUTS!
by birdyblue

Comment:
The light seems a bit strong, and the high-key background doesn't quite work for me, especially with those partially visible elements to the left. I would have thught a softer light would give a gentler feel to the image - I don't mean less bright, just more diffuse, to lighten the extremities of those shadows.

One cube or two
by puma

Comment:
good detail, and I like the fact that you've used just the barest hint of light to show the shape of the bottle here. - gives it a warmth and subtlety that appeals.