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Greg as far as I am concerned picky is exactly what I am after. And you are absolutely correct, the light source really does look out of place. Everything else is curved and the light sourc is a rectangle. How did I not see it. But I have sorted it, nearly every droplet had some degree of the light source so hopefully I haven’t missed any.Many thanks for taking the trouble to comment.
Peter
As a pic it nearly works for me but there are a number of small distractions which I find quite off putting. On the right hand side the white curve just below the shoulder immediately grabs my eye. Why is it there? The highlight on the end of the nose is equally distracting. You have gone for symmetry in composition but because the symmetry is just a little off ( ie his shoulder on the right is cut, the alarm clock is not quite vertical) it really sticks out. And the clock behind his head is out of round, it is distorted. Does that matter? Normally no but in this composition I think it does. And the blacks around the clock are quite crushed, a little detail showing would have been good, as it is it is just a black void. But my biggest concern is how flat the face indeed the whole pic appears. Ample opportunity for dodging and burning to give some solidity and depth. So are my thoughts completely negative? No. It is, for me, a near miss which is worth another go for what is potentially a striking image. I would also suggest that challenging us with ‘I don’t expect anyone to actually like this picture’ serves no purpose other than to provide a sort of preprotection against criticism. Why shouldn’t I like the image? I think it has potential.
I hope this helps
I much prefer the vertical. They look as if they are flat on their backs, definitely dead. The rotated view they look more in repose which I don’t think was the intention of the pic.
Thanks to all for the feedback. Funny when you ask for a crit in the Shark tank you end up looking far more critically at the work yourself. In doing so I realised that the paper cutting wasn’t smooth so there were jagged bits on the edge and some of the colours looked a little smudged. Details!!! So I am reworking the whole thing to clean it up and explore the angles suggestion. I will post my final version later. Again many thanks.
Peter
Thanks Patrick. Actually it is white paper but I did underexpose it a little and because the ipad light source was from the bottom and not very intense the curls ended up in shadow. A happy accident methinks
Thanks Peter, I agree it is static and I really like the idea of putting it on the diagonal. It also takes the focus away from the curled frame, and moves the eye into the pic. I will explore.
Peter
Thanks for the feedback re colours and clarity. And Erik, I really like both versions you have produced though version 2 is probably my favourite. Again thanks all.
Peter
This might sound harsh and I am really not intending that but how often is the word ‘abstract’ used as an escape clause? I’m sorry but it just doesn’t work, it feels contrived. Where is my eye supposed to focus? And what are those strange repeated birdlike squiggles. I would love to have seen the original, in focus, blurred through the rain pic. Sorry.
Peter
I don’t care about what improvements may or may not need to be made to this pic. What counts is the message. I love this pic. The best compliment I can give you is to say that I wish I had seen it and taken it. It sums up life at the moment. I never thought I would be guilty of making a ‘great shot,’ comment but there is a first time for everything.
Peter
I really like the composition of this pic. The pic for me is not about a bike in a setting but about the bike and the road combining to tell the story of a journey. Yes you could have angled the bike a bit more for extra detail but that would risk making the bike too dominant, as it is you have a nice balance between the bike and the road traveled. That said I do have concerns about the over exposed areas. I see you have tried to pull them back but if you look at the branches in the really bright area you can see that parts of them have been lost in the light and you have not been able recover them. The chromatic aberration is also particularly marked in the bright sky areas and in the very bright patches on the tree trunks. Fill flash may have worked but I would suggest five exposure bracketed shots blended in PP would have been another solution.
Peter
Ooops. Accidently posted twice but can’t figure out how to delete whole post.
Peter
glass on a plastic storage box, with my screensaver as a background.
I have used the same technique for photographing the moon as a way of reducing noise. But I always do it manually in PS. Take say ten shots. Stack them and then add a layer mask for each image. Then adjust the transparency of the masks so that the bottom one is 100%, the second from the bottom 90% the third from the bottom is 80% etc all the way up to the top with the topmost mask being set at 10%. Bingo noise is gone. 20 images you adjust in 5% increments. 30 images you adjust in 3-4% increments etc. It takes a little time it is but very effective.
Peter
Thanks Peter, you have an excellent eye, you got it in one. A number of years back when HDR was becoming a thing I dowloaded Photomatix and like so many other HDR newbies I went mad with a new toy and maxed out on the sliders. This is one of my early attempts. I have always liked the image but looking at it now I cringe a little as it has all the hallmarks of bad HDR including the ‘toxic’ grass. Unfortunately I have lost the original shots and only have the HDR version left so the challenge is to unHDR the pic in PS. I have made some adjustments to the saturation pulled back a little on the blacks but figured that I have lived with the pic for so long that fresh eyes might give useful feedback. Hence my post. So my thanks for your input to a work in progress.
Peter
The bottom one is sharper and has less noise.
Peter
I don’t mind the closeness but there is one irritation. You can see all of every seed except the very bottom one which you have chopped just a bit. It wouldn’t bother some but it bothers me, my eyes went straight to it. So close works, but leave a tad more on the bottom.
Peter
I find myself disagreeing with the others. I think the crop is perfect as it is, it puts the focus on the object ie the man and his bike. But I do agree with a lower viewpoint. My concern with the pic is that it looks static, there is no sense of speed or movement. Perhaps a slightly slower shutter speed and pan as you took the shot so that that the rider is frozen but the background has a movement blur. But hindsight is a wonderful thing. I still like the image though. But if it were mine I would put in a few hours of pp to fake motion blur. It would certainly take some fiddling and in the end it may or may not be effective, but it would be an interesting challenge.
Peter
