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Fragmentation
Fragmentation
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Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Complementary Colors II (Basic Editing III)
Camera: Olympus C-750UZ
Location: office
Date: Oct 4, 2005
Aperture: 7.0
ISO: 50
Shutter: 1/6
Galleries: Abstract
Date Uploaded: Oct 4, 2005

taken of a crystal candlestick holder on 2 pieces of construction paper, yellow and blue

Statistics
Place: 181 out of 318
Avg (all users): 4.9573
Avg (commenters): 4.0000
Avg (participants): 4.4340
Avg (non-participants): 5.3906
Views since voting: 845
Views during voting: 354
Votes: 234
Comments: 10
Favorites: 0


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AuthorThread
10/12/2005 10:48:18 PM
Greetings from the critique club! :)

First impression: Interesting.

Relation to the Challenge: As others have commented, yellow and blue are not complementary colors. I won't beat that horse any further into the ground. I do think that it's an interesting study of colors, and the refraction inside the crystal makes an interesting juxtoposition of colors.

Composition: As is usually the case with abstract photos there's no naturally clear focal point, so it's up to the photographer to provide one. That's something that you really didn't do here. When I first looked at the picture my eyes were immediatley drawn to the two marks in roughly the center of the image (I imagine they are manufacturer's marks that are refracting as well). Since there are two identical ones right next to each other, my eyes hop back and forth between the two. Next, I'm drawn to the strong vertical line down the center of the photo, which leads me down to the bottom, and back up the side where the edge of the candlestick makes the colors appear to change. Follow that line up to the top, down the other side, and we're back at the beginning again. Whew! A good example of a strong focal point in an abstract/macro is this shot from istockphoto. Notice how, when you look at it, your eye is "grounded" on the white oval at the top right. You may search around, but that's always your resting place. Finally, the distortion, which shows up as a bright white spot, at the top of your photo is very distracting, and probably could have been cropped out.

Background: Not much to say here, as the background was integral in making the shot, and you did a great job of that. I might have moved the paper up a little bit, so that the color went all the way to the top of the shot, or just cropped down to remove the part with the white background.

Photographic Technique: The shot is lit well. Exposure is good, and the edges of the crystal are in sharp focus. Good job! This would have been a hard subject to light, and technically you didn't quite pull it off. There are mutliple reflections of lights, equipment, etc. that really don't belong in the shot. I'm sure that if you had played around with different light sources and positions, you might have been able to eliminate those a little bit.

Post-Processing: You don't say what you did here, but I imagine that you didn't need to do much. This is the part of the process I still struggle most with myself, so I'm not totally sure what to suggest, but one thing I do notice is that there is grey mottling of the yellow paper. Try a tool like NeatImage, which would do wonders for clearing up some of the JPEG noise and artifacts that are present in your version.

Overall Opinion: I'm sticking with "Interesting." :) It's a shot with potential, but with the really high reflectivity of the crystal it's going to be VERY hard to get it just right. I think you did well, and your final score reflects that. Good job.

Finally, I'd like to ask you to consider critiquing the critique. :) Just as you're here to learn about photograpy, I'd like to learn about giving better critiques. If you have any comments, even if it's just "Thanks!" please drop me a PM.

Good Luck with your future entries!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
10/10/2005 06:17:17 PM
This is actually an example of Refraction. Fragmentation is what is done (and undone) to a hard drive, ie: defrag.

Cool idea and pretty good technical result.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
10/09/2005 01:16:54 PM
As the complementary color of blue is not yellow but orange, it would have been better imho if the yellow color had been orange instead. Otherwise it is a good study of symmetry, reflections and textures.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
10/06/2005 04:00:13 PM
This is a cool shot for this competition. I would like to see the whole subject to see what it is.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
10/05/2005 02:32:53 PM
Interesting perspective, but yellow needs to be orange to keep with the challenge.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
10/05/2005 12:16:48 PM
Interesting shot, but blue and yellow are not complimentary colors.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
10/05/2005 08:59:38 AM
Sort of meets the challenge. Entire photo seems out of focus though.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
10/05/2005 07:42:13 AM
yellow/purple orange/blue
  Photographer found comment helpful.
10/05/2005 06:39:16 AM
Two very pretty primary colors, Yellow & Blue. Where are their complements? These are not complementary colors.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
10/05/2005 01:19:28 AM
neat photo but yellow & blue are not complementary( blue & orange or yellow & violet)
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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