It's always tricky to tackles these deceptively simple photographs. I suppose pretty much everything is as you intended, though I'm not completely sure your thinking was absolutely spot-on. There are a couple of elements that I find uncomfortable viewing: primarily the negative space image left, and the fact that the beads run out of image to the right; and the very brightness of that negative space. Noe before you sit with hands on head condemning me for being a fool and not understanding high-key photography, I should say i do absolutely get your point, and in terms of execution from the high-key standpoint it's absolutely spot-on. I'm uncertain though, that it was the right treatment for the subject.
Partly becuase the beads themselves are so dark, partly becuase it's gone so very far into extreme white and thus extreme contrast, I think it asks too much of the eye. There are many worse shots, however, with better scores, so quite what you did 'wrong' I'm at a loss to say. The depth of field thing was probably an issue - many people dislike that one, I know; and perhaps the composition - you seem to have gone out of your way to make the string the focal point of the image (that shift of the beads as a whole slightly out of frame), and perhaps that makes for a difficulty.
I would have expected a slightly higher score - but perhaps the problem really was that there isn't much to say about it? A competently executed image, but with a couple of weird choices the point of which is difficult to determine? Maybe ...
I didn't vote on this one. I'd have probably given it a 5 -- a decently shot photo of something that doesn't really SPEAK to me (remember we couldn't see your comments) but which is visually interesting. I think a slightly greater depth of field might have helped you a bit; if there's some significance to the bit of beadless string (the focal point) I don't know it.
Hi, I didn't get as far as this image in voting, but I think I would have given a 5 or 6.
It's a nice picture, and the composition is good, but it needs more DOF in the front.
I think it's harder to give more than a 6 because the image doesn't say WOW! That doesn't mean it's a bad photo, but for a photo to do well on this site it really needs to stand out from the crowd.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of the DOF causing both foreground and background to be OOF. I'd prefer one or the other. This is distracting to me especially on the left where we see 3 beads in focus but the ones before and after OOF. I do like the tonality and processing. The string is very sharp and that's good. the composition is good as well. it may be just a tad overexposed (seen in the string and the way the background sorta "invades" the beads on the left.
wonderful mala beads... I like the simplicity of this shot.. humble beads held together with common twine - made uncommon by the look of being well used.
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