Hi all,
These are my comments to the pictures assigned to me from this month's PUG.
(I'd like to once again send a note of appreciation to Chris B. for gettting this
comment practice going.)
As for my comments: I am usually very hesitant of giving critical comments unless
explicitely asked to do so. This is for two reasons, mainly. First, I may not know
with what intention a picture is being shown. I may have missed the point completely.
Secondly: my comments may get more attention than they deserve. (This means that I do
not at all mind having my views challenged, for whatever reason.)
So, please just look at them as one individual way to look at a picture. There is no
universal thruth in there.
Steve Lewis: Barracks Boards
The first thing that came to my mind was: Where is the focus? Or is there a blur from
a not steadily held camera?
I don't know if this slight blur is deliberate or not. Sometimes you may want to have
it this way for different reasons. As it stands I find it slightly annoying as I keep
trying to adjust my eyes to get it in focus...
And you don't really sense that aged wooden texture (or of the fading paint), as you
would have, had the focus, or the resolution been crisper.
But - apart from all this - it's a nice selection of pattern and textures, that
decoratively could be used in it's right place. Hanging on a wall or maybe as a faded
background on the screen.
Conrad Samuels: Old log
Just like in Steve's picture, the selected object is a nice one for finding exiting
textures readily available around us if we care to look for them.
However, there are two things that I find a reason to critically comment on. First,
also in this picture (just like in Steve's) I lack a crispness, resolutionwise. (Maybe
some more work could have been done to it, digitally?) Now, this is in fact a
difficult shooting situation. Bright midday(?) sun and a very contrasty scene (and I
am no expert in dealing with this myself). It seems to have affected the sense of
depth, which brings us to the second comment.
The arrangement with the log placed as a solid "lump" this much in the foreground with
just a slight "window" to a background in the upper left corner poses a problem, in
that the relationship between foreground and background doesn't seem to have been
considered very much.
The background, as shown right now, doesn't really do anything to the picture. Had
there been more of it, it could have been a useful contrast that may have highlighted
the main object, the log, but now it is more of a distracting feature. (One way would
have been to crop the picture to include the log only.)
Nevertheless, despite my comments above, it's still a kind of a nice picture of a
log...:)
John Mustarde: Tortoise
This picture is bound to bring a smile to the face of each viewer. (Not a bad quality
of a picture at all.)
Not really that much to say about it. (Kinda looks the way I feel at times...)
Had I gone out to shoot this tortoise for the theme of "Patterns & textures" I might
have tried to shoot him/her from the front, filling the whole frame with enough DOF to
bring out more of his shell, and get it integrated with his feet and head into nore of
a unit altogether.
But it's perfectly nice as it is.
(Btw. it's interesting to see (now as before) how good use you're making of your long
focal lengths.)
Lasse
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