Ordinary People
by louister

Comment:
From the Critique Club:

I see that this is your first challenge entered here at DPC. I hope you do not get discouraged with your outcome. You have definately met the challenge with this shot. It however got a rather mediocre score. Why is this? Let's look at the shot and see what comes out of it...

I think that part of the reason that this didn't score so high is in fact stated in your title. These are very ordinary people. They are just sitting on a step and not really doing anything. They are not really conveying any emotion or action. They are just... Ordinary.

The shot does have some interesting compositional features. I do kinda like the way it is divided into light and dark. However there are details in the dark which are distracting from your ordinary people. I find myself looking more into the dark to see what is there than looking at the subjects of the shot. This was an advanced editing challenge. There are ways to make the dark part of the shot darker. I think this would most definately have helped. There are also ways of making the dark part of the shot lighter. This may have helped also by bringing out the detail that is there. If you did this, your viewer may not try to figure out what is in the shadows.

Hope that you find something useful in this experiment in street photography! Can't wait to see what you shoot in the future.

Yours
TC

Winter Performance
by meyers

Comment:
From the Critique Club:

First of all let me congratulate you on a nice shot for the challenge and a decent score/placement. That said let's look deeper into this shot...

I like the feeling that you have here. The coldness and loneliness of the one person playing his sax in the snow. There is a story there that the viewer has to determine for themselves. The pose of the subject is excellent. He is playing his heart out for himself if for no one else. It looks like he doesn't care that no one is watching him. He plays for an audience of one.

What could make this even better? There are a couple of distractions in the shot that draw away from the emotion a little. This is basically a natural b/w shot. The blue sign on the right of the frame, the green sign towards the left of the frame, the yellow hat on the bike rider and the red tail lights of the cars all are little points of interest that draw the eye but do not add to the feeling of the shot. I think that this shot begs for the selective desat technique. What I mean by this is taking away all the color that is there except for the sax player. Removing, or even subdueing the unneeded color spots that draw the eye would help to keep the eye on the subject of the shot. This, I believe would help to emphasize the emotion of and the story behind the shot.

I think this would be an excellent shot to keep playing with in processing. Try different techniques of removing/subuing the unnecesary colors and see what you come up with. I hope you take this advice and post any results that you get for us to see.

Yours
TC

Glowing
by Structor

Comment:
Wow. I almost love this shot. I'm finding the white bar of light to be a big distraction though. If it was redish, goldish like the rest of the bars of light this would be a fascinating shot!
Kudos
TC

More than an "apple"
by Simpa

Comment:
I'm trying to figure out how this was lit and am leaning towards you having used the flash. I'm also assumning the flash is on the left side of your camera. When doing a studio shot like this I would recommend never using your flash. Turn the dang thing off. Put the camera on a tripod or other solid object and use the timer to take the picture. Let the camera use a long exposure. Then you can play around with moving the lights around to get cool effects.
TC

Chinatown Orange
by Wink

Comment:
Damn... too bad for that little sticker under the thumb... Otherwise this shot is the bomb!

Chilli Fruit
by VuurVliegie

Comment:
Your dof is quite shallow which doesn't seem to work too well here. I can't figure out where your point of focus is and that is confusing to the eye.
TC

F R U I T S T A L L
by PurpleFire

Comment:
This is a bit too busy. A closer crop of just one fruit may have worked better. This way there is just too much going on and no where for your eye to rest...
TC

Lemons: Fresh off the Tree
by vzegarski

Comment:
Looks like your a touch overexposed. It also looks like your colors may be off just at ouch. Yellow is a tricky color for the web for some reason...
TC

Got... Capsicum?
by xXxscarletxXx

Comment:
Not in that pepper... That is a sweet pepper. On the hot scale it is pretty near the bottom...
TC

without title
by thorgils

Comment:
I believe that this may violate the TOS... :-P
TC