Brutally honest critique thread

Lss said:
The moment is a good one. One person is perhaps reading, the other one is distracted from reading and gazes out. It's believable that she's looking at the person walking by. The scene is unfortunately a bit too busy, the highlights are blown, and given the part in focus it's quite unclear what the shot is about (I'm going back and forth between the earring, the book, and the piece of string). I wish the old man wasn't there, his position is not good. But okay, can't change that from this angle. I would have framed out the person on far right, and focused on the woman (?) who is sitting towards the camera. I think you could still get decent depth of field to make out enough of the younger woman. She's the interesting looking person in the scene, but all we see is her back. Let's make her a support rather than the main subject then.

I wouldn't throw away this image, there is something I like about the atmosphere.
Click to expand...


Thanks to everyone who commented. I've been ambivalent about this photo, which is why I chose it for a critique here. I appreciate the "brutally" candid comments.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I've been struggling for a while. I knew my standards for something worth putting online dropped but I didn't realize how far. I think it's time I took a bit of a break from photography.
 
Bingley said:
OK, I'll wade in. Curious what folks in this thread think of this one:


Burlington, Vermont by bingley0522, on Flickr
Click to expand...

Well, this one has potential. There is tension between the reader and the passerby. However, as others have pointed out, this tension is diluted by the rest of the scene. You can highlight this tension by cutting away the right side and give it a contrast boost on some areas of the photo. It is not a throwaway, but needs some work to bring it alive.
 
Hey Brian, that's called overreacting! As usual, the picture has some strength and some weakness. I thought it had the strength that I mentioned, and you can look for/try for more like that. But I have to add that I don't understand why Ned dumped such a load on it – IMO honest critical comments should stop short of outright disparagement.
 
I posted here looking for a critique and I appreciate the time you both spent responding.

I've struggled with making interesting images the last year. Its virtually the same critique I got a few years ago on another site from other photos I shared. This critique just confirmed my what I hadn't been completely admitting to myself; that the deficiency is immediately visible and that I haven't been making progress.

I don't want anyone to be discouraged from participating in this thread.
 
As you see fit. It's just that IMO there's a difference between criticism and insult. Telling a photographer he'd do better to spend more time with his kids is … which one?

PS – glad that while I was writing this, you backed up into what we can agree is 'honest criticism.'

Kirk
 
Brian Legge said:
I've struggled with making interesting images the last year. Its virtually the same critique I got a few years ago on another site from other photos I shared. This critique just confirmed my what I hadn't been completely admitting to myself; that the deficiency is immediately visible and that I haven't been making progress.

I don't want anyone to be discouraged from participating in this thread.
Click to expand...

When I feel like I'm struggling, which is often the case, I turn to photo books, zines, websites. If you haven't already, maybe give it a try.

The images I look at serve to do the following (in no particular order): 1) inspire- looking at great pictures makes me want to capture my own; 2) challenge- to perhaps try something new in terms of content/use of light/composition for example; 3) refreshen- plenty of nice work out there in different genres that free my narrow mindedness.

Ultimately you have to go out and shoot.

Hope it works out for you.
 
... get some preconceptions, quick look at the subject and you'd have lots of first person statements to trot out ...

... all you meed is an abstract concept to go with it an you've enough 'I feel' 'my idea' and 'I like' to fill the post, you no longer have to bother about the photo itself you can start taking about yourself in relation to the photo.

On the plus side we've had refreshingly few people boorishly insisting there are no rules to this stuff, or banging on that any rules there are simply exist to be broken at every opportunity ... I wonder if they ever notice how often work that follows ends up in galleries or with more likes on their ego driven facebook page? ...

What little we have heard from the camera-club brigade has been easy enough to ignore the 'wot you did wrong theres' 'a few feet to the right' shower who would have you believe you need to remodel the landscape like Capability Brown or be there on a day when the light was quit different to what it actually is to do any decent photography ...

... god knows what they get up to now have photoshop, I dread to think what monstrous creations are shown ...

... so all in all it's gone quite well more opinion than analysis sadly, but less trenchant than I expected ... and what little juxtaposition and serendipity we have had has been in context not just to stick in a long word, thankfully, not much pretentious ad hoc Latin or Italian, well, until now and I did that so it's fine, ciao ...
 
Sparrow said:
... god knows what they get up to now have photoshop, I dread to think what monstrous creations are shown ...
Click to expand...


They take multiple exposures in different light using a combination of both wide and telephoto lenses .

They then blend the exposure in PShop.

That way you get the perfect light just where you want it to be and also get to choose the right perspective for the different elements in the shot.
 
Michael Markey said:
They take multiple exposures in different light using a combination of both wide and telephoto lenses .

They then blend the exposure in PShop.

That way you get the perfect light just where you want it to be and also get to choose the right perspective for the different elements in the shot.
Click to expand...

... how pissed-off would Duchamp be with that eh?

(PS ... arty joke sorry, Duchamp was was one first and best in the fourth dimension group of avant garde artists that aspired to just this sort of thing at the start of the 20c, cubism being just one aspect of it ... and he went on to show that conceptual readymade urinal some years later which is now all most people of him know, despite him being a leading cubist painter at the time, better than Picasso's cubist stuff anyway)
 
Ned Bojic said:
Brian, just to set the record straight: Your photograph shows a good technique. It shows good compositional skills. It shows good balance. It shows good post-processing. It shows that you know your way around a camera and a subject.

However, it also shows that you live in a place that doesn't offer much in terms of "street shooting".

Really, don't be discouraged. If I was you, I'd be discouraged by what my environment offers me visually, not by my skills. Do yourself a favor and go to NYC for a weekend, and come back home with enough files/films to keep you busy a few months. And then, repeat.

I'm glad that you took it the right way. The Mature way.
Click to expand...

Bravo for this addendum, Ned.

Brutally honest critique does not mean that it can't be tempered with encouraging comments. As much as we cite balance in images, our critique should also be just so.
 
Myrtle Beach. June 2005

Myrtle Beach. June 2005

U776I1425212405.SEQ.0.jpg


Any thoughts about this, anyone? And please be brutal 😉
 
hey Lawrence.
As it is a group of people, would've been nice not to decapitate any of 'em 🙂
If it's a shot only about the girls (i do like their facial expression), then there's too much other stuff included.
I wish the 'beachwear' behind was easier to read.
 
Ned Bojic said:
So it is a chummy-chummy critique thread after all.
Click to expand...

lol Don't be an ass hat, Ned. But if we (you) are thinking that our (your) photography is the barometer against which we (you) are measuring others, then when we (you) are delivering that critique, then it better well stand up to the lofty heights we (you) are setting. No point talking about the supposed complexities required in an image, when the feedback provided is more lop sided than any composition you (we? Nah, you) are dismissively pooh-poohing.

All critique offered from people on forums should be taken with a pinch of salt. Is it these people you're really aiming to please? If so, then you're probably just going to have to take it on the chin. If it isn't, then its merely an interesting, albeit, redundant exercise.
 
Me thinks,
If Youv'e got a Good EYE and can feel the Pulse, the surroundings the atmosphere
you can be ANYWHERE in the World
And Capture the Eye of the Beholder

You don't need no stinkin Moscow ,NYC or any other big city 🙄 :angel:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Keith
The brutal critique thread .....
4 5 6
Replies
103
Views
8K
f16sunshine
f16sunshine
Back
Top Bottom