Anger Management
by ozdick

Comment:
very capturing image

Me
by YuliyaG

Comment:
oh la la

Crazy Banker
by Jacko

Comment:
check your spelling. . . lol

Yup...this is the real me
by camelotnorth

Comment:
I hoped that this challenge would have the personal touch. Nice to meet you.

Dreaming
by mbardeen

Comment:
nice use of negative space and high key

The Recorder
by Koriyama

Comment:

Originally posted by qachyk: Problem: never heard of your magazine, was dubious and checked, google hasn't either. There are probably existing magazines this photo could be for in general, wish you'd picked one.

//www.recordermail.demon.co.uk/recordermag.html

Message edited by author 2003-08-25 02:26:48.

Ready For Incoming Mail
by Gracious

Comment:
*critique club*

Overall
You’ve prepared a scene around the theme of waiting. The letter rack is empty, the knife on hand, the title clear. Graphically, there are three main subjects; the blue – silver colour combination, the objects themselves and the shapes which they produce. Shadows are also present, and I will return to them later. The question for this critique is whether or not the elements support the theme. Largely, any answer I give will be subjective, but I will try to elucidate my reasoning.

Technical
I̢۪m treating this shot as an art photograph. The scratches on the blue backing, the slightly soft focus on the knife, the strong shadows on the right and in the top corners all disqualify this from any commercial use. (For that, Orussell̢۪s diffuser suggestion would have helped tremendously, or actually use the lighting as a graphic element within the shot, always a viable, but dangerous, alternative.)

I feel that you tried to use lighting to create a sharp effect on the metal. However, there are large shadows under the knife, behind the letter rack, and the top corners are dark, suggesting that the single light source used wasn̢۪t sufficient to fully light the entire scene. It might have been better to have cropped a little off the top and up until the handle in the right to minimise any damage caused by shadows. If you really wanted the shadows, and the corrugated shadow from the letter rack would have been interesting if done clearly, then I suggest that you deliberately play with the light source to create that effect.

You set the automatic exposure for the entire scene. Rather than balance such a scene, average metering calculates an 18% average, which is fine for scenes containing lots of different colours and light intensities. Here, you only have navy, silver and gold. Reproducing accurate colours using average metering is a matter of chance here. Better would have been to meter for one colour only, then to manually change the exposure accordingly. For example, a reading of the silver would produce a dull silver. You̢۪d need to increase the exposure by about 2 stops to produce a glittering silver. The blue and the gold might be lighter, but not much. Certainly, the dark shadows would have been reduced, and more detail would have been visible in the knife body.

Artistic and Conceptual
Here, I̢۪ll try and answer my earlier question. How do, if they do at all, the combined elements support the theme of waiting? The knife suggests a strong line. How is the line used here? It moves from bottom right to above middle left. Does it take us out, or lead us into another part of the photograph? Actually, I think that the placing doesn̢۪t do anything deliberately at all. The circular theme in the letter rack is strong. A tunnel is formed, and you angle it to take us away from the starting point at the knife body. Are we led anywhere thematic or connected to any other place in the scene? The end of the tunnel itself forms an oval. Is that oval linked, too?

The knife and the letter rack have a common element; one is predominantly linear with a circular part, while the other is predominantly circular with a linear element. I would like to see these elements combine somehow, and for that ‘somehow’ to suggest the theme of waiting.

Suggestions
I don̢۪t feel that this scene answers my questions. So, I̢۪m going to suggest a few changes, some things you might think about in relation to these objects.

Be totally aware of all graphic elements in your shots. Play with them, experiment with combinations, see how other elements are formed when combinations interrelate. Make the arc at the end of the letter rack match, or belong to, a similar shape in the knife. Find angles which connect the given angles in your objects.

Thematically, play with the elements. A knife on top of the letter rack might suggest waiting more than one just placed by the foot. Or even through the rack, diagonally, or from the top? The straight lines in the rack might be juxtaposed parallel with the line of the knife creating a subdued feel or placed perpendicularly for a more dynamic contrast, supporting waiting? The arc and the tunnel both suggest waiting, don̢۪t they? Can they be used thematically?

If this were me, (goodness forbid) I might tie the knife to a very thin thread and hold it above the rack with the tip pointing slightly upwards. I̢۪d place the rack off-centre but face-on with the camera. Using a face-on camera angle, I would expose just for the brightest point, the silver, and shoot a macro shot from as close as I could from in front of the rack using a wide aperture. The resulting shot should be quite dynamic. I might try varying the scene by placing the knife behind the rack to the upper part of the resulting circle. At all times, I would be thinking about the shapes and connotations created. Take a couple of dozen shots, then choose.

I̢۪m sorry, but I didn̢۪t vote. I would have given a 4.

Best wishes,

Jim

purple glaze
by munkeyprn44

Comment:
*critique club*

Writing personally, one of the reasons why I became a member of DPC was to develop my technique as a single-shot photographer. I was heavily involved with the more traditional arts in the past, but now, I am pursing an interest in photography as a modern art.

Why am I writing this rather than critique this photograph? Having studied this ‘shot’ for some time, seeing that both faces are identical – needing a timed exposure and a model who can produce the exact position, different light casts on different parts of the canvass – requiring a specially-made filter, seeing two vertical lines on the left-hand side which interrupt the flow – the ready-made filter again?, and not being given any information about the making of this shot, I can be forgiven to believing that this is not a single shot, but a computer-aided graphic. Now, there’s no inherent problem with that, only on this site, we only accept single-shot entries. If it is, I’d really love to see how you did it. When you do, I’ll write a full critique, I promise.

By the way, I actually like the image. The word ‘purple’ has strong connotations of contemplation, worry and despair, all of which are present here.

Sweeter Treat
by hughletheren

Comment:
Ignore this posting. I can't seem to get back to my home screen without typing something in here.

Sweeter Treat
by hughletheren

Comment:
*critique club*

Overall
The rich colour palate certainly supports the feeling of a ‘Sweeter Treat’. You have succeeded in creating a warm atmosphere, a cosy image probably fitting a commercial use if the logo were present. Technically, your choice of aperture captures the detail well, your shutter speed stops the movement crisply, your lighting presents the material reasonably securely and your composition is cropped cleanly with no superfluous elements. There appears to be some blurring on the bottle cap, but otherwise, the shot has been executed well. You have captured the flavour (sorry, the pun had to be put in somewhere, best at the beginning) of the challenge by presenting not only liquid but a function of the liquid. To this extent, the shot succeeds. However, this success is limited when purely graphic elements are considered.

Artistic and Conceptual Considerations
I have a number of problems with this image. Graphically, a key element is the repeating arcs. However, due to the camera angle chosen and the choice of pitch black background, these arcs conflict rather than complement each other. I would have preferred a dual tone background, one which sets off the horizontal from the vertical. At present, the bowl seems to be at a warped angle to the background. A lower camera angle would have equalised the arcs and balanced the angle of the bowl to the background. In other words, there is a lack of perspective which makes viewing the image difficult, although the pitch black backing is classy. I can see why you would like to use it.

Returning to the arc theme, a horizontal bottle cap would have continued the theme nicely, and you might have taken trouble to ensure that all arcs were of the same angle, or if different, pleasingly contrastive. The bottle needs to be lifted for gravity to make the liquid fall out. Could the lines of the bottle be positioned to balance those of the glass?

I feel that the pitch black backing was a mistake, not only for the reasons mentioned above. To ensure the integrity of the black, you needed to use a fast shutter speed and some exposure compensation. You spot lit areas of the scene which emphasised graphic elements – the arcs – (I suspect unintentionally) in order to provide enough light for the actual thematic elements – the ice-cream, syrup and bottle. Better would have been to have provided a much more balanced lighting, avoiding the unwanted reflection on the left-hand side of the glass, chose a background colour to complement the colours of the elements and exposed for the syrup itself. At present, the syrup, ostensibly the main element, is hardly visible. I suggest that you consult a colour chart for complementary or contrastive colours for the syrup and place that at the back. You’ll find the tonal range of the resulting image considerably different from the present one, but more vital and, possibly, more rewarding.

The weakness of the syrup is made even more problematic by pouring it *behind* the ice-cream. At the very least, it should come directly on top, better still, to the front of the image. Compositionally, a lower camera angle would force a scene with a much higher level of ice-cream, above the bowl rim level (and of course, more to eat later!). Then, you could be afforded with a more face-on camera angle which would emphasise the space between the bottle cap and the ice-cream mountain. (A well-lit light-cream backing would really be effective here in turning the syrup stream into a viable graphic element.) I would also suggest you take a white balance reading from the ice-cream, which would help align the colour coordination throughout the scene, although I don̢۪t believe that there are any colour problems here with your presentation.

A Second Overall
You executed your vision well. However, that vision was not entirely inspired nor executed with a concept of graphic understanding. The shots that won this particular challenge were all completely wonderful in their use of the camera as a device that captures prepared graphics. This shot has some of that potential. I hope that you find my suggestions useful.

Best wishes,

Jim