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10/24/2006 10:50:38 AM |
Greetings from the Critique Club. I have been assigned your photo to critique and here are my thoughts:
Personal Reaction: I confess my first reaction was, “How does this meet the challenge?” Then I began to wonder what the table leg was doing in the background. Then, “What’s the black thing in the foreground?” In the end I puzzled out that the table leg was a wooden head with a mask, the black foreground object was a gun. Then the previously mysterious title made sense. I’m still not sure what the round thing on the left is, a foreshortened finger or hand? This all took longer than most voters will give an image. I suspect many voters voted it lower because they didn’t take the time to puzzle it out.
Composition: The composition was just okay. The gun (the main subject?) is almost dead center. Sometimes with highly symmetrical subject and compositions, this works well but often leads to static feeling composition. It doesn’t work so well here. The tilted head in the background helps some; but not enough to rescue the composition.
Technicals: Focus is good on the hand (finger?) and on the gun. I like the shallow depth of field which blurred the head a bit. Lighting is good on the hand and head, but weak on the gun. On my calibrated monitor the only detail I can see on the gun is some scaring on the barrel and a bit of definition of the handle. If you are only hinting that it’s a gun, this is fine, but it made me want more detail on the gun which I couldn’t see very well. If you look at the histogram for the photo, it is “U” shaped; lots of darks, lots of lights, but little in the middle which leads to a high contrast image. I generally like photos like this but in this case you have lost some of the mid-tone detail as a result.
Conclusions: Woody was a whimsical challenge so maybe we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously here. You’ve submitted a whimsical image with a sense of humor which I like. Comments indicate that voters who “got it” liked it. The main problem was that it was subtle, possibly too subtle for most voters to spend the time on to appreciate. When shooting for a specific challenge, and if you care about scores, try to be less subtle in how the image meets the challenge and make the image more quickly approachable. Toys and abstracts often turn voters off, so use them with caution.
As always, this is my personal opinion. Feel free to PM me if you’d like further dialog.
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Comments Made During the Challenge  |
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10/16/2006 02:31:31 PM |
| I love the intensity of this. |
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 Photographer found comment helpful. |
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10/15/2006 05:05:25 PM |
| I don't think this really meets the intent of the challenge. |
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10/14/2006 02:48:11 AM |
| Is this the only close up of a woody? nice picture and great angle, providing atmosphere and entertainment! |
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| Photographer found comment helpful. |
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10/13/2006 07:27:12 AM |
| Great idea - It took me a sec or two to focus in to see what I was looking at. |
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| Photographer found comment helpful. |
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10/12/2006 09:26:27 PM |
| Not sure exactly about this image. I understand the effect you wanted. But wonder what it looks like if the focus was reversed? To much focus is on the gun |
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| Photographer found comment helpful. |
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10/12/2006 09:14:02 AM |
| cannot make this out at all, this is quite dark...OK so it's woody holding a gun, but you cannot see that clearly |
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| Photographer found comment helpful. |
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10/11/2006 09:02:57 PM |
| Looks like a tribute to one of Qart's shots (and that guy really needs to buy a "u", but that's neither here nor there.) Like the mask. Takes a second to get past the gun, but hopefully folks will take more than a nanosecond to look. |
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| Photographer found comment helpful. |
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10/11/2006 08:29:01 PM |
| Clever - with all the DNMC's in this challenge I did a double take - then I saw the mask an smiled. Neat idea. |
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| Photographer found comment helpful. |
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