My first critique request, YIKES!

Pentax DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AF

03/27/2005 07:38:45 PM · #1

Hello all. I'm a newbie here, and have started taking more & more photos over the last few months with my nifty new camera. It's great being able to fire away & not have to spend all that $$ on development! I'm at the point where I feel naked without my little PowerShot. I really want to become the best photographer I can be and have spent quite a while over the last few days browsing this site & some of the amazing photos taken by the artists here. To me it would be just about the coolest thing ever if some of the talent here would take a moment to comment on some of my pics. I'm starting with this one, as it uses a PhotoShop technique I just learned by reading a tutorial on this site. I am VERY thick-skinned, so don't worry about bruising my ego!

faidoi

Pentax K10D

03/27/2005 07:50:04 PM · #2

Contrast is very nice. Desat works. I feel like I want to see a closer crop of the girls, but then we wouldn't see at a beach.

DanSig

03/27/2005 08:08:44 PM · #3

I like the pic but why is a part of the hand on the girl with the yellow bucket so dark ? looks like you used burn tool set way too hard, there is also a spot on her knee.

if you would crop 5/8 of an inch of the right side of te picture then composition would be better, the girls are too cloce to the center of the image.. rule of thirds you know ;)

joanns

Fujifilm FinePix S5 Pro

03/27/2005 08:16:57 PM · #4

First thing I noticed Strike, is you have a very good eye. If you are new to photography, you have a great natural talent. I agree with Faidoi, the contrast is very good. Top quality. The two things that I really want to point out is your adherance to the "rule of thirds". Also, and this is a point that I never think about but it is a good one, notice how the horizon is just above the tallest child's head. You could have so easily had the horizon just a bit lower which would have had the negative result of cutting through the child's head or body.
Now for the desat. I don't care for the effect but I think that I'm in the minority so don't listen to me. I would be much more inclined to purchase this image without the colored buckets. :)

sgauria

Panasonic DMC-FZ30

Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro for Canon

03/27/2005 08:22:13 PM · #5

My one suggestion would be to crop the image from the left and the right to leave just the 1/3rd containing the girls. I find that selective desaturation works a lot better when the colored object is substantial portion of the picture.

Otherwise I like it a lot.

virtuamike

Nikon D2X

Carl Zeiss 35mm ZF f/2.0 Distagon T

03/27/2005 08:36:50 PM · #6

I like the clean composition. It's simple and effective. I'm not a huge fan of the selective desaturation though because I don't think the buckets themselves make interesting subjects.

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM

03/27/2005 09:25:57 PM · #7

Awesome, thanks folks!

So, "The Rule of Thirds", I've seen this before & I see how a crop in could solve this while also getting a better view of my girls.

Joanns, such a great point about the horizon & getting a negative result! I'll certainly take advantage of that, it makes such good sense, I wish I'd seen it at the time.

DanSig, the burns you see are shadows from my smaller girl onto the bigger one as the sun was setting.

So we're sort-of split on the desaturation thing. I like it.

Thanks for comments thus far!

jpochard

Canon EOS-40D

03/27/2005 09:29:34 PM · #8

What a lovely shot of the girls. I'm not a fan of the selective desat, but I really like everything else about it. I'd like to see the whole thing in color.

03/27/2005 09:41:50 PM · #9

Originally posted by jpochard:

What a lovely shot of the girls. I'm not a fan of the selective desat, but I really like everything else about it. I'd like to see the whole thing in color.

Thanks! Here's the colour version:

fstopopen

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

03/27/2005 09:44:27 PM · #10

for the record, I like the selective desat better.

drake