The Cane Fire
by Node

Comment:
*critique club*

Greetings!

(There seems to be a thread about this photo which I don't know about. So, sorry for any duplication.)

The photo certainly fits the challenge theme well - the smoke covers over a 1/2 of the total frame. From the single comment below, I guess that you were surprised at you (perceived) low ranking and lack of comments. I'd like to address that here.

There are a few problems here that I'd like to talk about. The first is the subject. Your title includes 'fire', indicating the main point of the photo. Yet, there's little in the frame to make me feel something about this fire. Is it a big one? a small one? a controlled one? what is it? I might imagine that 'cane' means 'bamboo', but I can't see why that's being burnt here? There's nothing in the frame to answer these questions, or to hint to anything more than something burning. So, the subject feels weak - I'm left looking at something which means nothing to me, and at a frame where no clues are given. A human figure would give some indication of scale. A close up would give some clue about the nature of the fire. These are missing, yet something of the kind is required to take a burning object into the realm of the universal.

Technically, you could have chosen a more appropriate way of capturing the moment. I don't know the S7000, but I can imagine. (If I'm wrong, forgive me.) You say in your comments that it's difficult to capture both the flame and the smoke. That's because the dynamic range of the scene falls outside the captureable range of your camera. There are ways to get round that, some DPC-legal. Your shutter speed was 1/6 at iso 200 and aperture 4.4. Remembering that this was a members' challenge, you could have reduced the iso to 100 and the aperture to around f8 which would necessitate a much longer shutter speed, requiring a tripod. Calculate an exposure which would bring the brightest part of the scene just inside the histogram range and, using your photo manipulation software, bring up the darker areas. The lower iso would reduce noise, but that could be done using NeatImage. The tighter aperture would increase clarity and detail all around.

Compositionally, there isn't much involved here, and that's the crux of the matter. You haven't really thought about the shape of the smoke clouds or the placing of the fire in the frame, except for central and low. The smoke clouds themselves seem aimless, too. For this type of shot, you need to forget about the realism of how a bundle of canes on fire and concentrate on on or two graphic lines within the scene. If you had a human present, you could use that vertical to create a dynamic with a smoke or flame line. At any rate, your photo shows how the eye might see such a scene, not how a graphic artist would interpret the action and create a sense of wow from the given material.

If you have any comments on this critique, please feel free to contact me.

Best wishes,

Jim

Watching Mommy's Makeup
by DougPaz

Comment:
*From the critique club*

Greetings!

I like the different expressions on the two faces - the serious intention of the mother and the playful learning of the kid. The three heads form a good visual line across the frame, and there are a number of strong lines present here which add to the punch of this candid snapshot. The colours are clear with no serious cast. The kid's face being brighter helps support the message of the title. You've chosen a good dof to highlight the foreground people at the same time as blur the background, but not so much as to destroy the context.

Being a members' challenge, you could have burned a little on the mother's face. The darkness takes away from the overall frivolity. The challenge is 'mirror', and you felt compelled to add quite a lot of the mother's hair on the left. I feel that this detracts somewhat from the composition. Too much front of focal range in the foreground gives a slightly messy feeling. Maybe there could be another way to include the mirror without this.

I have to say that the capture of the girl is simply wonderful. The expression, the skin tones, the lighting are all spot on. I suspect that you centred that in your composition and left the camera to do the rest, leaving the mother darker. Oh well.

I'd have given a 5 or a 6 for this, had I voted, but if the crop had been to the right (to include some right hand mirror) and closer in on the girl, probably a 7 or 8.

Please feel free to contact me about this critique.

Jim.

Defy Gravity
by train

Comment:
...by turning the photo upside down. I don't think so. I don't like the border, either. 3

Splash
by Rando D300

Comment:
Yikes! Great capture.

Bang! -- Sore Loser
by graphicfunk

Comment:
You must have been playing black! Nice shot. 7

Dirdy Birdy
by jefalk

Comment:
Didn't the challenge brief specifically ask for no motion trails? Outside this challenge, I'd rate this very highly, but here, it's off the mark. 3 for a great shot.

It's Not Rocket Science
by guitar_mann

Comment:
I can see the point with the play on different textures, but, for me, the curtain is too dull to make for an interesting overall effect. Sorry.

Concentrate
by Tranquil

Comment:
The point of this challenge was to avoid blurs. Unfortunately, here the ball and the arm are blurred. You needed a fast shutter speed.

In Flight
by Brenb

Comment:
The dof is good, the colours are fine. I'd prefer the wings to have been upwards, though. 7

Rifle Shooted Water Balloon.
by eojedaa

Comment:
Stunning. My only 10 of this challenge so far.