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12/06/2021 05:15:02 PM · #1 |
Hey... Daughter and I were excited about our work paying off with a fine placement, but that did not happen.
So... what went wrong, please?
There's a mirror, with the wine reflected in it, and the camera is not reflected in it.
It seems to be decently photographed, so I think voters must have voted it DNMC. The commenters (thank you!) didn't give any indication of DNMC, so... what happened?
Does it just suck? What am I missing, please?
(Your kindness in an honest critique will thrill me and not make me angry.)
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12/06/2021 05:46:51 PM · #2 |
Hi Lydia,
I'm one of your commenters and I gave the image a 6. Don't think the image is dnmc but to me the subject of the image is your daughter and she's not reflected. I like the reflection play with the wine glass but takes a minute to figure it out, it's a small part of the image and again not the focal point to me. The B&W choice throws me a little and seems a little flat. I think color may make a stronger image for this. You mention the misaligned grass in your comments and I wanted that to be perfect. There's something odd about the processing on your daughter's hand/skin maybe the longish shutter caused some motion blur.
I've never won a ribbon(unless you count brown) so take this all with a grain of salt but it's how I read the image and why I scored it a 6.
Jim |
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12/06/2021 06:43:36 PM · #3 |
Umm.....
"Trying to get the horizon in the mirror level with the actual horizon when a half-inch movement threw it all off…. There was a bucket behind the mirror trying to hold it in place., but when she put her hand on any of it, it went all out of whack. Ha! And then she had to reach for a glass she couldn’t see…. It was a reflection.
We tried different angles and the reflection of her hand being seen in the mirror was not okay. That had to go to make it work. So… add “no hand reflection” to the mix of “don’ts” and “dos”."
It seems that you know why it wasn't up to your usual offerings.
IMNSHO, the Top 10 were pretty good.
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12/06/2021 07:21:24 PM · #4 |
| I gave it a 6. It was competently done and absolutely fit the challenge. It just didn't grab my attention at all. Maybe a different perspective (closer, wide angle?) on it could have impacted me more. |
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12/06/2021 07:53:30 PM · #5 |
| Maybe in color and having her look at the glass? Cute image IMHO! |
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12/06/2021 08:10:12 PM · #6 |
The photo felt like it was staged for the sole purpose of fitting the challenge. Otherwise why would the mirror and the wine glass be there on the lawn in the first place? What's the story there? It worked in the case of Larry's blue ribbon shot because of a huge "wow factor". In your case, "wow" was missing. And the light was rather flat... So I agree with  Yo_Spiff, it lacked emotional or photographic impact. On the technical side, cloning job around her hand was pretty sloppy. Also, I think it would score higher if you used a much wider aperture (why did you use f/10?) to isolate your subject from the background and produce a nice soft bokeh. And keeping it in color would probably also be better in this case, but it is hard to tell without seeing it.
Message edited by author 2021-12-06 20:33:52. |
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12/06/2021 09:42:16 PM · #7 |
I had the same thoughts: the story didn't really make much sense.
It's obvious that it's a mirror, so I would have been tempted to have the reflected wine glass much farther back in the reflected image, and had your daughter peering into the mirror, wondering how to reach it, with the other glass out of sight of the image.
Beautiful girl with a great smile, very natural, but was still just smiling at the camera instead of interacting with the scene.
Also, the whole left half of the photo seemed to detract instead of add. What about cropping in from the left? Or perhaps having her partially behind the mirror peering out and around?
These were just some things flitting through my mind. Feel free to disagree. I know what it's like to be excited about a photo, and have people not understand my glorious vision. ;)
(By the way, I typed all of this on my phone. And you should know that every time I tried to type peering, it wanted to put peeing. It changed the whole feel of the post. :) |
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12/06/2021 10:08:25 PM · #8 |
This was the challenge: "Take a photo where your subject is reflected in a mirror."
Your daughter is the subject, and she isn't, so that's halfway to not meeting the challenge, you're right about that. It's certainly a big part of why I gave it a 5. Also what others have said, that the image looks contrived, it's hard to read a story in it, and so on. I like the idea of having the wine glass out of camera but farther away in the mirror, and her concentrating on trying to reach through the mirror. That would be more digestible. |
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12/06/2021 10:11:52 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by vawendy:
... every time I tried to type peering, it wanted to put peeing. It changed the whole feel of the post. :) |
No kidding -- you'd think it would be trying the other way 'round ... ;-) |
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12/07/2021 04:21:25 PM · #10 |
I thank you all VERY much for your help!
I see what you're saying about the "story". Not exciting.
I agree about the wine glass' position. We struggled with that.
I did try color originally, but it detracted from the illusion, I thought. I was probably wrong about that.
LOL @ the bad cloning job around her hand. I didn't touch that. Ha!
LOL@ her peeing into the mirror... indelicate move, daughter! LOL!
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