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05/08/2005 10:32:26 AM · #26 |
Originally posted by brianlh:
Originally posted by dpdave:
This is a great idea, and learning tool, John. I'll give this a bump by asking someone to pick one of my shots. |
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Thanks Brian.
This was my entry for the abandoned buildings challenge. It was, believe it or not difficult to find something that I wanted to use for this challenge. A friend whom we were working with carted several of the crew around and looked at a number of spots, and this one came out the best of the shots I got.
First off, what did I like about the image? I felt it identified with the challenge well, and I liked the run down feel. It was indeed a room of a very old farmhouse, estimated to be from the 17th century by our guide, who is a local archaeologist. I also liked the black and white treatment, and used it to give the image a more dated, stark look. I could have, and probably should have, tried it in sepia.
How could it have been made better? Well, to begin with, shooting handheld in 40mph wind is never a good idea. I would have like to have caught it a bit later in the day, and used a tripod. I also would have liked to get a bit more of the room involved in the shot, which I did when I originally framed it. Unfortunately, due to the time of day, it was way to bright, and there were a number of other items, (weeds growing, etc.) that were more of a distraction than a help to the composition. Mostly there was just a lot of it that was blown out, particularly at the top.
I made another version with a heavier border and a title at the bottom that I like a lot more. I think I will also go try a sepia version to see if I can kick myself a little harder. I really still like this shot, and thought it would do better than it did in the challenge.
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05/08/2005 10:39:00 AM · #27 |
I am in for it if anyone could pick one of my non-challenge photos...
thanks |
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05/08/2005 10:40:40 AM · #28 |
Originally posted by om10:
Really nice, but see if you can critique it Kavey! |
I'm going to cry.
I just spent almost an hour writing this in detail and just as I was about to click POST I don't know what the hell keyboard shortcut I pressed by accident but it was essentially like using the Back button and I lost the whole lot.
I will redo it but I can't face it just now.
WAIL
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05/08/2005 10:54:39 AM · #29 |
Originally posted by gaurawa:
I am in for it if anyone could pick one of my non-challenge photos...
thanks |
Here you go
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05/08/2005 10:56:45 AM · #30 |
Originally posted by Kavey:
Originally posted by om10:
Really nice, but see if you can critique it Kavey! |
I'm going to cry.
I just spent almost an hour writing this in detail and just as I was about to click POST I don't know what the hell keyboard shortcut I pressed by accident but it was essentially like using the Back button and I lost the whole lot.
I will redo it but I can't face it just now.
WAIL |
I wrote my review in notepad, then when I was finished saved it. Pasted to my box here, reviewed it and corrected spelling and then posted. Writing in notepad will hopefully prevent it's loss. I have done the same thing myself.
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05/08/2005 11:18:52 AM · #31 |
Originally posted by rblanton:
I wrote my review in notepad, then when I was finished saved it. Pasted to my box here, reviewed it and corrected spelling and then posted. Writing in notepad will hopefully prevent it's loss. I have done the same thing myself. |
Ditto! Sometimes, if you write for long enough, you can also get a "timeout" error, even if you hit the correct button. Since most browsers will let you open up a local text document without having to launch any other text editor, I just do it there. |
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05/08/2005 11:35:10 AM · #32 |
You know the worst thing is that that's JUST what I normally do when writing longer posts... write it in notepad or Wordpad so I can save as I go just incase and then copy and paste it here to post. I don't know why I didn't do that this time... didn't realise how long I'd spend on it when I started it I think.
I will rewrite it but you how disheartening it is to try and recreate something immediately when you've just done it?! Maybe later this evening or tomorrow...
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05/08/2005 11:49:11 AM · #33 |
Damn Kavey, hate it when thtat happens...
OK. I'm game, someone wanna pick for me? Heesh... What have I done?
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05/08/2005 12:03:28 PM · #34 |
Originally posted by TooCool:
I'm game, someone wanna pick for me? Heesh... What have I done? |
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05/08/2005 12:05:23 PM · #35 |
Originally posted by Kavey:
Originally posted by TooCool:
I'm game, someone wanna pick for me? Heesh... What have I done? |
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Ouch... Thanks Kavey! :-P This may take a while...
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05/08/2005 10:41:58 PM · #36 |
Originally posted by nshapiro:
ok, I'm in if someone picks one for me. |
How about this one? It's is one of my favorites on dpc:
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05/09/2005 12:53:25 AM · #37 |
Back story: We had a freak snow storm here in Michigan in April. The snow of itself wasn't so wierd, it was the fact that there was enough to actually stick around for a couple of days. It happened on the weekend and me being the pizza guy didn't have much time for shots. Saturday morning, I wondered around my front yard and the neighborhood looking for potential shots. In the ol' ladies flower garden, I saw this tulip bent over from the weight of the snow. I didn't take this shot for the minimalism challenge, but had the challenge in mind when I took it.
Critique: What I like: How often do you see a tulip weighed down by the snow? The exposure was perfect. The background snow was blown out, but that was part of the effect I was looking for. The snow on the tulip is in great focus and I managed to expose the shot for that snow's detail. There is great detail in the snow and the textures of the petals.
What I don't like: There is an obvious halo around the stem of the tulip and around the bottom of the flower. There is also a kinda reverse halo inside the white part of the background. The background has more contrast than I would have liked to have seen. The dark is too dark and the highlites are too light. This pulls the eye away from the flower to some extent. I tried several different angles, but without trampling the already stressed flowers in the garden, I couldn't eliminate the dark part of the background. I wanted to keep the white part as it enhanced the whole different feeling of tulips in snow. I would have liked to have had a touch more lite on the bottom of the flower, but had the same issues with trampling the other flowers and plants and couldn't really get a reflector in the right place. I was not terribly happy with the overall look of the bokeh, but had to accept the limitations of the 50mm f/1.8 mk II's aperture. I also had a wierd color cast in the flower itself. I had to play around with slightly desat'ing the reds to get the flower to look right. I'm not sure why this happened in camera...
Overall, I expected the shot to be in the low (x.000 to x.100) sixes. Coming in at 5.811 was about as close as I've come to guessing a final score so far.
How's that for a self critique?
Message edited by author 2005-05-09 00:55:10.
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05/09/2005 12:57:35 AM · #38 |
i think this is a great idea. Can someone pick one of mine too please
Lisa
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05/09/2005 01:03:07 AM · #39 |
Originally posted by lentil:
Can someone pick one of mine too please |
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05/09/2005 01:11:05 AM · #40 |
Thanks toocool!
This came about when we had particularly bad weather, they predicted 15ft swell. I had just recieved my new camera :). I knew that the surf near me was up (i can hear it from my house). When i got down there i couldnt even get out of the car. Too windy and rainy..
What i like: The colour. I think the sepia suits how the weather was feeling that day, very dreary. Wow, i am not good at this. I really dont like anything else in this shot.
What i dont like: The border, too thick. The fence before the beach is a distraction. The fact that it isnt very clear. Although the weather was really bad i dont know if it is because of the camera or the fact that i was in the car. Overall it is a very boring photo.
Hows that?
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05/09/2005 02:38:04 AM · #41 |
All right, I'll bite. Help me out, because I don't feel like I've quite got the hang of it(photography).
Thanks! |
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05/09/2005 04:50:40 PM · #42 |
Originally posted by jpochard:
I can't believe I just wrote out an entire self-critique and then lost it when I hit the wrong button. Arg!
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OK now I'm spooked out. Finally had time to pause and read the other critiques on this thread (having read only John's and then attempted my own) and just got to this line.
I cannot believe we both did the same brainfart thing in such quick succession!
Do you think this thread is jinxed?
Anyway, I TOTALLY sympathise!
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05/09/2005 04:52:58 PM · #43 |
Originally posted by cpanaioti:
Originally posted by nshapiro:
ok, I'm in if someone picks one for me. |
How about this one?
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ahem ;o)
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05/09/2005 05:11:41 PM · #44 |
If at first you don't succeedâ€Â¦ cry like a baby, get over it and try again!
Back story:
Last year my dad invited me to accompany him on a short trip to Kenya called the Festival of Wildlife. Usually I travel with my husband but my dad and I share a strong interest in wildlife and a very strong interest in travelling and I thought the trip would be fun. The idea of the festival was to immerse a group of wildlife-loving travellers in a prime wildlife location in the company of a number of experts in their fields. We had famous wildlife photographers and artists, bird experts, wildlife guides and more. The tour operator associated the trip strongly with the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation and on the penultimate night David Shepherd compered a charity auction in support of his foundation. I won the bid for a hot air balloon safari to be taken on the last morning we were in camp. The balloon safari was very nice. Following the post-flight breakfast I was directed to a vehicle with an Italian family of 3 and told we'd be driven back to our neighbouring camps enjoying an extended game drive on the way. They seemed very nice but this was the very first day of their very first safari ever and the five year old boy insisted on stopping the vehicle at every distant sighting of an antelope with loud cries of "Bambi! Bambi!" I asked the guide if there was any chance he could drop me off earlier and continue the drive for the family alone but he explained that it wasn't possible and that was that. I settled in to make the most of bambi sightings and was ready to put my camera down when the incredible sightings began. We saw several elephants, two cheetah brothers and then came across two lionesses with several cubs. I could see that a couple of the cubs were trying to climb the tree and for once my instinct was right when I guessed that this little cub would reach the branch in the shot. I didn't waste time on camera settings but raised the camera to get focus and just held it up until the cub moved just where I'd hoped. I fired off two shots and the cub was gone again. This shot is more than just a picture of a cute lion cub to me; it's a wonderful reminder of the specific experience with this little pride and of the entire trip itself.
What I like:
The eye contact with the viewer is what I think makes the shot work and the catchlight in the cub's eyes draws the attention to this quite well. It's quite an emotional connection I think and besides, humans have a strong instinct to find babies appealing - even babies of other species!
The way the branch frames the area of most interest – the face and front paw – makes for a composition that I like and the colours in that branch contrast very well with the lion cub itself and the lush green vegetation.
What I dislike:
The point of focus isn't quite right. Whilst the tip of the cub's face falls in the focal plane the rest of the plane is taken up by the branch itself. I wish I'd got the focal point further backwards so that the cub's head, front to back, was in the focal plane and the branch slightly out of it.
I dislike the variation between dark at the left and very light to the right edges of the frame.
I dislike the intrusion of another cub's tail and a lioness' body into the shot.
I also find the foreground branch distracting and wish it weren't there. For once it's not a case of being able to move to another viewpoint to remove it from the scene as another viewpoint would not have resulted in this absolutely face-on encounter. I just wish it weren't there in the first place.
I'm sure I'll think of lots of other things once I've posted this but that's a second stab at it. I think I have covered everything I thought of first time around!
Message edited by author 2005-05-09 17:13:41.
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05/10/2005 04:10:01 AM · #45 |
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05/10/2005 07:47:13 AM · #46 |
Originally posted by Glen King:
All right, I'll bite. Help me out, because I don't feel like I've quite got the hang of it(photography).
Thanks! |
Someone want to pick one for me and see if I can use my own method on myself? LOL! :)
Deannda |
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05/10/2005 08:01:27 AM · #47 |
OK, Deannda, how about this one?
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05/10/2005 08:18:32 AM · #48 |
Originally posted by dpdave:
OK, Deannda, how about this one?
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This was originally taken for the Freedom II challenge but was my first DQ because the one I entered had an illegal border on it. This is one of my favorite shots but there are a few things that bother me as well.
I like the overall shot, the composition of the shot, the way the headstones lead me out from the front to the back and the lighting was unreal that afternoon, it was later in the day, the sun was setting and I was driving around the circle in the veteran's section of Woodlawn Cemetary when the light on the front headstone just caught my eye. I stopped the car, rolled down the passenger window and started shooting. I choose this for the challenge because it reminded me that because of the men and women willing to go into harms way is the reason we have freedom today. And it doesn't matter if they were killed in action or died years later in the safety of their own home, the fact they were willing to go and be a part of protecting us was enough for me.
What bothers me about the shot, I had to do a lot of burning on the back ground above the headstones to get rid of a distracting fence and some trees. I could have/should have cropped it a little tighter on the top and it wouldn't have hurt the overall balance of the shot, I could have also cropped it a little tighter on the left, again, leaving out the distracting headstone to the left of the main focus, leaving an even crisper line for the viewer to follow.
This ended up being one of my favorites and I have a feeling that if I hadn't screwed up with the border it would have been my highest scoring shot to date. I had two copies made, one for fair last year and I took one down to Woodlawn Cemetary and left it on the caretaker's doorstep, no note, nothing, just thought they could either use it on display or find the family of the main headstone and give it to them if they wanted it. :)
Deannda
How was that? |
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05/10/2005 08:19:46 AM · #49 |
Darn I was hoping to get in and pick a photo for someone...will someone pick one for me please anyways...
John you always come up with good excercises, thank you...
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05/10/2005 09:53:32 AM · #50 |
Originally posted by tolovemoon:
...will someone pick one for me please anyways... |
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