Critique comp #1

[rob marshall]

This is not about the picture it's about the critique.

1. Someone posts one image (of anything) which we will critique.
2. Ten people write a 100 word+ critique (only one entry each) which is interesting, funny, serious, whatever.
3. With ten entries we attach a poll to it and any member can vote to select the best critique.
4. The winner (most votes) selects a new image for the next comp (but is not allowed to enter that comp).

There is no problem in repeating what has already been commented on. If you are the tenth commentator pretty much everything there is to say will have been said. Don't worry about that - just use your own words for the same points.

Who will put an image in, so we can start? Once the image is there just start critique entries.

[jiro]

OK, Rob I'll submit the first pic.



This is an old image that I took the 2nd day I got my Nikon D70. So, bring all your bullets and hit it.

[rob marshall]

Thanks, Jiro.

By the way folks - there is no problem in repeating what has already been commented on. If you are the tenth commentator pretty much everything there is to say will have been said. Don't worry about that - just use your own words for the same points.

[rob marshall]

Still-life shots such as this one have to rely strongly on composition, texture, colour (or tonal range for BW). This shot is quite good in those respects. There is a good tonal range with some strong colour - although I'd suggest that there is a little too much warmth in the WB. I tried editing the shot, and found that the levels were heavily to the right (darks). By pushing the whites slider to the left it made the central area of the shot brighter, which had the effect of giving more attention to the central area.

I like the black hidden area beyond the door, which lends an air of intrigue, but perhaps the opening could have been compositionally shifted to the right to give more of a third/two-thirds split. I'm not sure about the three screws holding the hasp (on the left). They are quite eye-catching, but don't look quite as old as the hasp itself (perhaps the hasp has been refitted at some time). perhaps they are just galvanized screws and haven't aged as much as the iron-ware.

The image would benefit from being presented with more sharpening to emphasize the detail more.

Overall, quite a good shot, but like all other still-life shots you need to think very carefully about composition and what you want to 'tell' before shooting the shot. Still-life shots are difficult to get right, but this is a good attempt.

[MiniChris]

There’s a certain degree of “staged-aged” in this image. I looked at it for several minutes and gave in to it being altered for the benefit of a “good” photograph in much the same way a piece of furniture is hit with chains, scratched, then refinished to have that “distressed” look. The reason for all this prefacing is I cannot make the hasp fit the tongue in any position.

Silly as that might sound, if the eye is not looking past that point, there is no composition. While colorful, and depicting a sense of intrigue with the central diagonal of deep shadow running from top to bottom, countered with a hasp running in an opposite diagonal; the brightness of the foreground colors, the nearly centered two diagonals does exactly the opposite and one thinks solely of a door left ajar; uninviting and certainly unexciting.

This is the classic case where an image would benefit greatly with a black & white conversion; primarily to lose the shininess of the hasp screws which almost hypnotize the eye, but also to further emphasize that old, distressed, beaten and well used door. A slight overlay burn to the screw heads, a minor shift up and over to the right of the dividing diagonal, a stronger sharpening and some deft burning for shadows in the wood grain, and this goes from a mundane,” anyone can make this shot,” to a piece of art only a photographer could have seen.

[crisscross]

Bad luck I was looking today Jiro. Basically most man-made stuff falls as a photographic subject as it lacks beauty, which is why I now post at Juza forum where it is actually banned except if incidental to landscape. In this case it is doubly or triply ugly; the timber very badly treated, machine driven srews, why in what we are pleased to call a 'civilisation' do we have to lock everything (when we first came to Herefordshire in 1972 we didn't have a front door key and shops gave you credit), even the lock has been attacked and mutilated with a welder. The only way of redeeming the poverty of the subject would be to extract from it some abstract qualities of form or pattern, or even light.

It looks as if you have to go to mono (or way out colour, which I think you are good at) and it looks from a quickie that the hasp and its shadow has some character of light that can be worked from; perhaps a story-line implied eg



"Is it safe to go in now?"

[Ati]

Despite the attractiveness of the saturated colours, there is something disturbing about this picture. This comes partly from the two halves separated by the black diagonal not seeming to belong together in any way, whether it be colour, texture, degree and type of ageing and weathering, or indeed positioning. Partly it comes from the harshness of the lighting : a picture whose values are old age and long usage would invite a softer touch than these stark shadows.
As for any still life, the question of intention is more acute than for more anecdotic subjects. If the author's interest was in the textures rather than the emotions related to age, the lighting could have been more tangential to emphasize them further. If it were purely compositional, then the pickings were rather lean. I found the centre of attention to be the colours and sheens of the metalwork, with the key being the rich rust lustre of the hasp, and would have been tempted to crop out some of the woodwork to let them stand out further.
In summary, some highly attractive colours and textures, particularly in the metalwork, with disturbing undercurrents coming from compositional factors inviting the question of intention.

[atlantean]

I find this thread interesting, so here is another photo to comment. )