Images FOR CRITIQUE

[tgtaylor]

It's good to see that there are a couple of veterans on this board.

Speaking of combat rescues/med-evacs, some pilots wouldn't come in if there was fire on the LZ. But one pilot, I can't recall his name now, always came in regardless of how much fire there was. He was a hero to my unit (7th Cavalry). Then one day the inevitable happened and he was shot down behind enemy lines after making three consecutive evacuations during the battle for An Lao Village in Bong Song province. The nearest company immediately counter attacked and brought all on-board to safety without suffering a single casualty in the rescue. The pilot had suffered a broken back in the crash which obviously ended his tour and probably military career. I always thought that he deserved special recognition for his seemingly complete disregard for his own safety in numerous battlefield rescues.

Thomas

Correction: An Lao is located in Binh Dinh province not Bong Song. This was the 3d battle for An Lao which occurred in Spring of 1967. The village was completely bull dozed after this action and probably no longer exists.

Thomas

[ataim]

This thread has gone stale. SO here is a new one for critique.

[Cletus]

First, thanks for restarting this thread Paul! I think Chris Keth's idea for a critique thread is a good one - maybe I'll even post an image here myself one of these days, if I can get the umption up to bring a photo or two into 'The Digital Domain'!

I like your shell photograph a lot and not because it's the most "original" image I've ever seen. "wink" (No offense) I wish I had one of these shells myself, to try my hand at this classic subject and then I'd be trying to do with it what it appears (in the little digital facsimile) you've done here.

Your photo appears very well and creatively lit - whether you used natural light or strobe isn't apparent, as it should be. It seems you've quite ably captured the translucence, the texture and, well, the nature of the shells surface and substance in the photograph. You have clearly rendered the full tonal range and chosen a good amount of empty space around the shell, filled with pure, obsidian black, which to me balances out the overall tonal distribution nicely.

I think choosing the empty space around the shell, as well as it's orientation too, I suppose, is about the most one can do from a photographic composition perspective, since the shape the shell itself so naturally forms an almost ideal composition without any interference at all! At least in my opinion.

All in all, I think the choices you made (as in almost all photographs, really) are also what makes this one sing. I hope I can do as well, if I ever find myself with one of these beautiful shells to photograph. Nicely done!

[ataim]

Thanks Cletus. Yes is a knockoff of a picture that some guy Weston made I did use both natural and artificial light. My breakfast nook has bay windows on three sides with blinds. I can open and close them as needed. For this picture I left all of them open and used two regular 60 watt bulbs. One high and slightly to the left and one far away and to the right. I messed with the lighting for about 30 minutes trying to get the right reflections. Schneider 210mm f/45 metered 2 seconds, reprocity and bellows factor actual time 22 seconds. Pyrocat HD, N+1

[Ken Lee]

Another approach might be to place greater emphasis on the relationships within the shell itself, of which there is an abundance.

This is not offered as an improvement or replacement of your photo, merely a suggestion to explore the shell with a slightly more subjective approach.

I don't often like abstract photos (or purely representational ones either), but find that those which straddle the line between objective and subjective are often more compelling in the long run.

[Vaughn]

The surface quality of the shell is well done. But as a whole it seems to lack a sense of volume. There is some depth as the shell spirals downward, but the upper portion of the shell just lies flat.

[ataim]

Thank ken, I will reprint an 8x10 see how it looks. Vaugn, if you think this one lacks volume, you should have seen the one from the previous session

[gbogatko]

This has been a tough nut to crack. The flowers are blazing white, the leaves medium/dark green. The velvet dark brown.
Film: AristaEDU 8x10.
Filter: Green
Dev: Stoeckler - Bath A 5g metol + 100g sodium sulphite mixed to produce 1 liter solution. Bath B 100g borax for 1 liter solution.
Uniroler: 1 minute of Bath A, 4 minutes of Bath B.
With all of this, I still needed to fiddle in PS to bring up the leaves.

But I think it worked as a picture. Next is a real darkroom print.

Have at it!!

George

[jb7]

I hope it's ok to do this, but editing seems to be the norm for this thread-
I have to say that what follows are my opinions, not wrong or right, but an indication of how I might have looked at your picture-
and the last time I took a flower picture, I took three dead roses and wrapped them up in string, then took away the vase leaving only a puddle, so I'm hardly someone whose advice you should listen to-

I like the tones you have here, but other things bother me-
The most obvious is the composition, the trajectory of that diagonal within the frame. I'm not sure if it's a cultural thing, but I think it bothers me less if its direction is mirrored.

The next thing is the vertical in the background, because it nearly is, but it isn't.

It isn't a bad thing, but it makes a definite rectangle, and the proportion of that rectangle to the remainder of the background bothers me, I don't really think there's enough of it.
There are other small concerns, the shadow of the leaves, the leaf covering the lip of the jug, and the lack of structure at the top of the arrangement-
perhaps also the small creases in some of the folds in the velvet, I know it's very difficult to arrange...
and while I'm here, I suppose I could request just a little bit more space below the jug.

I did an edit, which involved a flip, a rotation, a little extra on the side, and a crop.
Do you think it's an improvement, or should I have kept quiet?

If I'm brave enough, I might put something in this section soon, so you'll have a chance to get back at me...

[jb7]

I know what it is, I've been listening to Christopher Broadbent telling me where to put my lights...