Just One More Puff Before We Goby
JohnLampkinComment by LalliSig: Greetings from the critique club :)
First of all, congrats on your new personal best score, that can only improve though as I see great potential in this image.
I kindof like it and would have given you a 6 if I had voted, wich means to me means better than average but still not really a great shot, could have been great had a couple of things been done diffrently/better (for my taste anyway).
First of all, I kindof like it but it´s still wierd that the cigarette is so huge compared to the skeleton, I assume the skeleton is some kind of miniature but it´s kindof confusing so I think that might have thrown some people off. I actually like it that way as it really emphasizes the smoking and draws attention there but maybe you would have been better off using some smaller cigarette brand, if that exists, I don´t smoke so maybe all filters are the same size, I dunno.
I do like the setup, the shadow that is cast but personally I would have wanted to see it more concentrated, it´s too light for my taste, try using a smaller lightsource than the one you used and the shadow should be much darker and concentrated. Also, I think using a darker backround would have helped just as the shadow should be darker cause then the smoke in the picture would have been much more prominent. I like the slight vignetting and think you should have added much more in post processing, that would definately have improved the shot alot. Also the image is a bit too "gray", or doesn´t have as much contrast as I would have liked to have. Try this if you have photoshop, copy the layer, go to filter-other-high pass and use that with a very high setting on the new layer, then change the blending mode to soft light, works well on b/w-ish images and should boost it to a more three dimensionality, would work wonders on this shot.
Anyway, that is it, can´t find any more to say about the image, think it was underrated and should have placed higher in the challenge so keep at it.
Kind regards from Iceland, Lárus.
Photographer found comment helpful.
