A shot with the glorious Helios 85mm f/1.5, wide open of course. The soft glow and washed out contrast are all down to that particular creature's optics.
Very little postprocessing - no crop or rotation, just a little contrast and colour adjustment, a bit of cloning to clean up mold on the wall, and a spot of dodging and burning to tame the Helios' heavy vignette and bring out the text. Resized and sharpened.
Statistics
Place: 54 out of 56 Avg (all users): 4.4815 Avg (commenters): 0.0000 Avg (participants): 4.4333 Avg (non-participants): 4.5417 Views since voting: 343 Views during voting: 99 Votes: 54 Comments: 2 Favorites: 0
Greetings from the Critique Club!
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Hope this critique has been of help, feel free to PM me,
Susan
Thanks for the detailed critique, and the welcome! You're right, I've returned after being mostly away for the past four or five years - this place has changed a bit, but hopefully I'll hang around :)
By the way, this image is actually naturally lit and full colour, not black and white - just a very naturally low-saturation scene. I was going for a flat look, but you're right, to get the votes it would have needed a lot more pop!
Just took a quick scroll through your port before returning to write your critique...Eugene, you have some very serious photo skills. I'm guessing that you're returning after a hiatus from here, ad if so, in advance, belated welcome back and hope you hang around!
Now onto the photo. High-key, as you've probably seen from the front-page top 5, is essentially all about the white and bringing out the details within it. This is a site populated by literalists and they vote accordingly - I saw where you were in the final standings and to quote Austin Powers, 'Ouch, baby. Very ouch.'
The presence of the heavy black Hendrick's bottle and the accents on the Kraken bottle pretty much knocks this out of the running in terms of high-key; true white and true black is acceptable in high-key, but only in very small quantities. This is a decent b/w image, but both comp and subject matter lack interest unless carefully lit and made compelling in some manner. The candles look flat and the flash shadow on the wall behind them.
Hope this critique has been of help, feel free to PM me,
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