Personal project - critiques most welcome!

08/24/2006 12:28:29 PM · #1

I have set myself a number of personal projects to get me out of the "shoot for challenges" mentality. I have just pulled together a few shots for a project entitled Modern Cities: Contrast & Contradiction, which can be found here.

As this represents something of a new direction for me I really would appreciate any comments and critiques, on the basis I should hopefully learn something from it.

Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II

08/24/2006 03:05:05 PM · #2

Looks as though there are some problems getting to this gallery.

Safest way is to go here and then enter the gallery through the "Featured Gallery" frame on the home page.

Apologies for a dumb error!

mpeters

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

08/24/2006 03:15:12 PM · #3

Carl,

Left a couple of comments. This is without a doubt an area of concentration and subject matter which should give you many shooting opportunities. I would work on simplification of the images(exclude extraneous elements) to strengthen the impact of each photo. Then combine them in a collage for maximum contrast.

Cheers,
Mark

glad2badad

Olympus 60mm f/2.8 Macro M.Zuiko Digital ED

08/24/2006 03:17:18 PM · #4

That's an ambitious and worthy project. Kudo's for you. I've been thinking of trying something like this myself (theme based)...still working on the theme/concept. ;^)

I looked at some of your images at the url link you posted. Interesting images. One I found confusing is the one titled 'Essentials for life - ...'. Hard to figure out what's going on, what part is image, what part is composite, etc...

Good luck on your project.

08/24/2006 03:33:20 PM · #5

Appreciate the feedback, guys. This is going to be an interesting learning curve - from a life and photographic perspective - as I am not naturally a minimalist and am given to not making things simple!

Re "Essentials for life..." this was an interesting one for me to try and convey the hedonistic image on the one hand and the guy down on his luck on the other while balancing images in two different formats. Amazing thing is that the pictures were taken on the same street directly opposite each other. Chuckle - looks like this needs more work :-)

Thanks again

Carl

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 16-35 f/4 ED VR

08/25/2006 03:03:56 AM · #6

Bump (one and only :-)

Chiaroscuro

Nikon D600

08/25/2006 07:00:23 AM · #7

While I love the concept I do think you can do much more with this.
I am a guy without much shooting experience but from a viewer's perspective and with what I;d like to see my two bits are -

1. The ideas are nice and the contrasts that you are trying to depict. personally I like subtleness in images and with some of the highlighting (as in marking out that bum who's crossing the road and the guy lying on the floor) you make it too upfront.

2. On most images I find it hard to focus. The idea of image on image takes my eye away from critical points of focus. I dont know if situations occur in that manner there but ideally instead of two images pasted I would prefer one image conveying the emotion.

Once again... take my opinions with a pinch of salt. Maybe I dont shoot today for lack of a camera but I do know what I'd like to see.

And if I may I'll take the liberty to steal this idea and will get some results as soon as I get my camera. (which is by october)

A note - Where I live the contrasts are more in your face and present on almost every nook and corner and hence my perspective is a little diffrent. Here in Bombay both sides are more in your face.

Cheers.

08/25/2006 07:13:24 AM · #8

Appreciate the feedback saurabhv. I am hoping to get to India in the near future so maybe I will have more opportunity then :-)