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Sugar stream
Sugar stream
NiallOTuama


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Motion Blur IV (Basic Editing)
Collection: 2010
Camera: Nikon D60
Lens: Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO DG Macro for Nikon
Date: Dec 7, 2010
Aperture: f/5
ISO: 400
Shutter: 1/2
Galleries: Black and White, Blur
Date Uploaded: Dec 7, 2010

Simply sugar being poured over more sugar on a plate. Reason for plate so that the cleanup wouldn't be as bad! :)

My thoughts...
* That shadow on the left's gonna get me. I'm too tired to reshoot though.
* I reckon people won't like the way the mound of sugar's a little soft and a little overblown on the right.
* Maybe a cleaner plate would have made it look better. But I really like grittyness... which is why I'd be an awful portrait photographer.

In a way it's a bit of a copy of this (which is probably a poor copy of something else):


I'm quite happy with it. I don't love it, but I don't hate it. Prediction... 5.5ish.

[Dec. 9th, 2010 07:28:22 AM]

"No es adecuada para el reto." ("Not suitable for the challenge")
I disagree. I wish you had expanded more on it though.

Statistics
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Views since voting: 630
Views during voting: 319
Votes: 154
Comments: 4
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AuthorThread
 Comments Made During the Challenge
12/14/2010 08:29:47 PM
I like the simplicity and sincerity of this. It's sugar but it's not too sweet. Good.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
12/13/2010 08:32:02 PM
Nice idea for the challenge. The setup is good with the reflection in there. But the bowl is very tilted, and I wish more sugar was falling to give it a more dreamy effect.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
12/11/2010 09:27:30 AM
i like it, but i don't see much dpc-love coming here...

i'll give you a few ideas, but probably the best thing you can do is to read scalvert's post on how to win a ribbon.

it's really hard to separate yourself from what you have produced, but you must be objective. before shooting, establish just what it is that you want to achieve. define your subject. articulate your vision. then, you are ready to shoot.

when you start reviewing what you shot, you have to be honest in evaluating whether or not you got what you were after. sometimes, things just don't work out. half of my most recent entries were entered simply because i was on a dpl team; those images barely worked for me, and they most decidedly did not work for dpc. had it not been for the team, they never would have been entered.

one of the absolutes that dpc demands is technical perfection; and, with a set up shot like this, that is something that can be achieved with work. let me try to quickly run through some of the issues on this shot of yours.

the motion isn't readily apparent, nor is it very dynamic. even though it's there, it's not really enhancing the subject. for those reasons, you're probably missing points for meeting the challenge. so, you have to ask yourself is this the most interesting/captivating way to convey your idea, or should you have gone with something else, like pouring a liquid?

technically, you have a very, very shallow depth of field and the focus seems to be behind the stream, not on it. that's costing you major points. that and the lighting. these are things that are easily solvable, especially while shooting. since you can't do this without a tripod, you have almost unlimited opportunity to try every possible combination of settings between AV, TV, and focus points to find an image that realizes your vision.

along those lines, when you are working in a studio-like setting, you also have the opportunity to play with all types of lighting set-ups. there is hardly anything automatic about lighting, but if you work at it enough, you will get a handle on it. check out the following image of mine; be sure to look at the follow-up attempt in my image notes. my problem was that i simply did not allow enough time to figure out how to realize my vision.



i'm not going to fault your composition, although more of the stream and less of the mess would help. if you were to start over, with a clean surface, empty bowl, and an extremely long shutter, pouring slowly, you could probably capture a nice, interesting set of motions (the stream, the bowl filling, the spillage accumulating). again, this is the nice thing about set-up shots: you are only limited by deadline as to how many efforts you want to make. just keep in mind, learning is not a matter of repeating the same thing over and over and expecting the different result; it's a matter of trying different things on purpose and understanding the difference between your results.

hope this helps. good luck in the future!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
12/08/2010 02:28:26 PM
No es adecuada para el reto.
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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