Emptied pockets
by Russ

Comment:
Cute take on the challenge. I find the lighting rather flat and dull. I'm not a fan of shooting still-lifes from above like this. I prefer to shoot across the objects---like anything else, your camera is generally best positioned as close to the point of view of the subject as possible. Shooting from above tends to flatten everything into two dimensions. This can work if you are going for an abstract , graphic, quality. In this case, it just looks like visual clutter to me. Typically, a still life should show more modeling of form through the play of shadow and light over the obejcts. Also, fewer objects would have made the statement just as well with less clutter. This may be exactly what was in the students pockets but the viewer doesn't need to know that. Also objects that are familiar to a general audience are important. My choices would be the marble, rubber band, die, sharpener, coins,and the candy. That shoelace/chesnut (conker?) thing looks like some kind of homemade toy which is cute but not very clear to the viewer (this viewer anyway). I have no idea what that orange cap thing is.

college or 50 first class international tickets?
by matfitz

Comment:
An original take (I wish college costs in the US could be fiscally compared to 50 airline tickets!). The photo is a bit cluttered though. In my opinion, a few items would have made the statement and been less visually confusion. This kind of looks like the contents of a junk drawer to me.

Dictionary
by dogz

Comment:
Interesting abstract take on the challenge. Nice dramatic contrasts in light and dark and the various lines and shapes. I'm not nuts about the composition as a whole. I might have liked a more 3/4 view then this to create more diagonals and to take better advantage of the interesting shapes and shadows created by the indexes. The expanse of speckled white is less interesting to me but it takes up more of the frame.

Still Studying at 69
by chookie

Comment:
Angus Young? Disturbing. LOL!
It's a funny set-up but it looks a bit snapshot-y to me. The flash lighting is flat and dull and the red-eye and glare on the glasses gives the photo an amateurish quality. To avoid glare on eyeglasses (or windows, etc), particularly when using a flash, try shooting at a slight angle.

The Early Days
by fotodude

Comment:
Nikce lighiting and good still-life set-up. The black and white looks a bit cold to me. I suggest warming it up a bit by adjusting the Red in the RGB Levels.

Teachers Pet
by kennyt

Comment:
I like the colors. I would suggest that it might have been better to crop it so that the title of the book doesn't show. It's not a particularly significant title and the white lettering at the bottom is a bit distracting. The lighting is a tad flat -- although the exposure looks good I'd like to see a bit more rounding of form on the apple with a slightly darker shadow area falling on the book for a bit of depth.

~Olde School Report~
by tmilob

Comment:
This is a nice subject but the lighting washes out quite a bit of the detail.

School Stuff
by webking

Comment:
The colors are great. I like the flat, graphic quality you've achieved with the nearly shadowless lighting. You've managed to achieve that without washing out the bright colors. It looks like you knew what you were doing and got the image you were intending. There is something about the arrangement that is not quite right to me. I think it might be that the pencils, the eraser, and the block are all pointing in the same direction. I think if the pencils had been arranged so they pointed up and to the right the visual triangle that would result would have created a bit more dynamic tension.

10 Seconds to Go - Home Time
by saintnicholas_25

Comment:
I like the simple graphic quality of this image. I like the extreme right positionong of the clock. I just wish you submitted a bigger example. You should really take advantage of the 640 pixel max. It looks like there is some really nice subtle shading of blue in the background. It's just too hard to tell about the image quality when the photo is this small. That said, this is probably one of the best examples I've ever seen during my time at DPC that was submitted this small. This is probably due to the extreme simplicity of the image. Nice job.

The Trendy and Chic... Engineering Major
by yeoua

Comment:
Ha! I just got done explaining how high key lighting didn't work for the last photo and here I see a nice example of where it does work! High key is great for giving a modern,high tech, trendy look and you've used it pretty appropriately here. It could be toned down a bit---I'd like to see a little more detail in the skin tone and the denim but this is a great effort.