Hi all,
These are my comments to the pictures that were picked out for me to comment on this
month.
I hope I will do justice to the pictures, the techniques and the shooters in my
comments. (If not, I don't mind at all, the shooters or anyone disagreeing with me...)
Steve Larson: Wood Duck
What first strikes me are the colors. Never seen a duck with those colors, I don't
think you find them here around (Scandinavia). That's interesting. However it seems
that there are some surrounding strong green colours that possibly makes the duck
appear even greener. Switching to documentary viewing mode I ask myself how true the
colors are here. Staying in this mode I would definitely also have preferred having
the duck's feet fully visible. It is distracting to me that they are chopped off.
However, you do not necessarily have to apply this documentary/realistic view to a
picture. But still (documentary view off) I find that the crop at the bottom slightly
disturbing.
I find the out of focus areas interesting. This lens has got a very soft bokeh, it
almost looks digitally manipulated (and by this I don't mean anything negative, on the
contrary). It is just unusually and pleasingly soft and smooth.
I often find web pictures lacking in sharpness/resolution (to the extent that I've
been questioning my vision), and I am also looking for more sharpness in this picture
(asking myself if the long shutter time and shallow DOF is being the greatest factor
or if it could/should have had some sharpening done to the duck itself.)
You definitely should have got rid of those white dust marks in the left green area
though.
Other than that it is still kind of a nice picture of a duck....
Leon Althoff: Clarrie's Crab
I haven't done any real or advanced macro shooting myself, other than just trying it
out a couple of times. However I think that I realise how difficult it may be. In this
case I want to commend you for having achieved what you have in this case. Yet I do
not find the picture altogether successful (although you may have accomplished the
best any photographer may be able to in that shooting situation).
There is definitely a lack of 3-dimensionality. The crab appears slightly amorph, you
can't really feel the structure of the crab. (I realise that it is shallow DOF and the
colors/lighting that won't allow for the "tentacles" and the shell to appear, but
still.)
I was also asking myself whether something could have been done to the colours to make
the parts stand out more. But I do not know if this, in your opinion, would have made
it too unnatural for your intentions.
Interesting picture though.
Collin Brendemuehl: Milkwood
Is this a dead bat that someone has taken a bite at, or...? Oh, it's a plant. :) (No
critisism intended in this joke, Collin!)
I look at this picture as one simply of shapes and forms rather than from a
biologist's point of view. And as such I find it pleasing. As I recall from previous
submissions, you seem to have an eye for discovering and presenting views and
structures that are available around us if you care to look for them.
The tonality, the colors and light are within a rather narrow color range and that's
fine. You have carefully, by the narrow DOF as well as angle of view, allowed the
subject to separate itself from the background and there is a nice space around it.
(The green "window" to the right enhances this.)
I often find that pictures appear slightly too light on my screen and I often want to
make them slightly darker. This goes for your picture as well, but it could be simply
because I haven't calibrated my screen.
A rather nice one.
Brent Roberts: Getting Colder
At first I got confused by the comments "That is my girlfriend and my little brother
and sister..", while there are only two people visible in the picture. I assume that
your girlfriend either is a blue egg, a tree, was cropped out or in another picture
that you in the end didn't submit, or that the picture shows the spirit of her or that
she simply was present at the occasion as well, although not depicted... :)
Whatever the case I think it is a good picture. As you are focusing on the blue egg(?)
in the tree you establish a relationship between this and the two people in the out of
focus area. (You could just as well have left out the explanation and made the viewer
make up his own mind about this "mystery".)
The composition works well, the tree and the branch makes a nice foreground as well as
a frame which naturally leads the viewer's attention to the boy and the girl. The
geometry and the position of the boy and the girl gives a sens of direction out of the
picture. I like that. The red of her dress is also what in my opinion finally makes
this picture work so well.
Good shot.
Thanks,
Lasse
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