I spent almost a half an hour trying to get the lens in the camera. By that time it was dark and the flash was NOT working right. But overall it was pretty good.
Shot at 9:00 pm
8/23/2010
Statistics
Place: 177 out of 206 Avg (all users): 4.5190 Avg (commenters): 5.0000 Avg (participants): 4.4375 Avg (non-participants): 4.6026 Views since voting: 477 Views during voting: 245 Votes: 158 Comments: 4 Favorites: 0
First of all, I don't think the desaturated works with this shot. Usually when you desaturate, you just leave one thing in color. By leaving the hat and the bird, your eye keeps traveling back and forth and has no place to rest. Also, the fence, the person and the post are desaturated to b&w, but the tree and the left part of the fence end up kind of a sickly green that's quite distracting. I think it would have been more effective just partially desaturating the shot. Leaving the colors, just having them quite muted and then saturating the yellows.
There are so many elements: the post, the tree, the person, the finch, the fence, the lines of a spider web, that you eye wanders too much around the photo. A tighter crop removing a good portion of the post might help bring you eye back in.
The hand moving up to the bird is actually quite interesting, but it's very crowded by the hat and the string. Moving your model a little more to the right and having her reach a little more might isolate the hand and add some interest and crowd the picture a little less.
You had posted a note in the forums asking for some feedback on your shot... I've already voted, and as a member of SC I can look up who took what, so I thought I'd pitch in with some answers as to why you may not be scoring as well as what you had hoped. Please don't take any of this as being harsh... remember you had asked for a critique :)
For me, the selective desaturation seems a little gratuitous. It's almost like saying, "HEY LOOK! THERE'S YELLOW HERE!" to point out that it meets the challenge. To pull off the selective desaturation, I probably would have tried sticking to just one subject, rather than trying to bring two things into it (the bird and the hat).
Lighting is also a bit of an issue here. The flash left some pretty harsh shadows on the tree. It makes me wonder why you chose to shoot it at night? Does it add to the "story" of the shot? Furthermore... what IS the story of the shot? I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about viewing it. What is she doing to the bird? Is she admiring it... touching it... curious about it? The shot doesn't really trigger an emotion or tell a story -- I suspect that's also a big part of why it's scoring poorly.
Another detracting issue is the spider web, or whatever caused the streaks hanging on the wood. I would say that the whole wooden hanger could have been cropped out, along with the remnants of the fence on the right, to give more attention to the subject.
Again, please understand I'm only trying to help here... overall the shot just lacks a bit of "zing" (and clear intention) to grab attention for a higher score.
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