critique my photos, be honest!

[kbg32]

If it is about the vegetable cutter, why didn't you photograph him? The image speaks more about the crowd, which is not very interesting..

 

[kuuan]

Individual threads like this looks to be a better and more organized way of asking and receiving honestly frank critiques. Kudos to the participants. This is what I had in mind all along.

🙂

Frank very glad to read that 🙂
and thanks Keith and daveleo for expressing your acceptance too.

my preference is not posting a new thread for every other photo, but for each member having his 'own' thread presenting his own photos only. In this way every photographer can present his work, possibly explain his views his photography and photography in general and it is easy to come back to view critiques received.
what do you guys think?

 

[kuuan]

The guy's back on the left and the out of focus people onthee far right are extremely annoying. They frustrate the viewer.

I've rarely seen such a frustrating picture to view, on many levels, as this one.

Honestly this picture is not worth critique or thread.

thank you for your opinions and specially honesty Ned and Vobluda. Sorry for the annoyance.
I'll take the challenge and shall try to offer something that is more deserving, hopefully I can.
( edit: which I'd wanted to do already, but I have to rely on flickr loading to get to my pics, and here in Vietnam most of the time, right now, it doesn't. wonder if it is being blocked here at times, as e.g is facebook )
However showing pics that elsewhere have been liked will possibly teach me less.

 

[FrankS]

my preference is not posting a new thread for every other photo, but for each member having his 'own' thread presenting his own photos only. In this way every photographer can present his work, possibly explain his views his photography and photography in general and it is easy to come back to view critiques received.
what do you guys think?

Very good idea!

 

[kuuan]

Photo is perfect! Where else you could find the crowd to be so involved with such crap which doesn't draw any attention anymore 🙂

haha, thank's for that!
I am not sure if you are being sarcastic, most likely you are, but this very well expresses why indeed I thought it to be somewhat interesting, but comments make me doubt it, and I am grateful for that

I agree with most of the negative comments made above.
It looks like you missed the opportunity to make a very good picture of this event (whatever it was).

not so sure if I could have made a much better picture of that 😉

If it is about the vegetable cutter, why didn't you photograph him? The image speaks more about the crowd, which is not very interesting..

oh, interesting! as I recall I was more intrigued by the crowd, but I take it that hardly anyone, if anyone at all, shares this view 😉

 

[daveleo]

. . .
not so sure if I could have made a much better picture of that 😉 . . . . .
oh, interesting! as I recall I was more intrigued by the crowd, but I take it that hardly anyone, if anyone at all, shares this view 😉

I share your view on that. The crowd is really the opportunity here, so we agree on that.
In that regard, I would comment that the crowd faces are blurred, not "kindly soft", just out of fucus. Heads are clipped. The large part of the frame devoted to the guy's back really interrupts your crowd subject. IMO it would have been framed better if you were more to the right and held the camera higher or maybe tilted it up to not clip heads.
All of that behind us.... if you like the picture, that is all that really matters. "Critics" be damned 😀

 

[kuuan]

I share your view on that. The crowd is really the opportunity here, so we agree on that.
In that regard, I would comment that the crowd faces are blurred, not "kindly soft", just out of fucus. Heads are clipped. The large part of the frame devoted to the guy's back really interrupts your crowd subject. IMO it would have been framed better if you were more to the right and held the camera higher or maybe tilted it up to not clip heads.
All of that behind us.... if you like the picture, that is all that really matters. "Critics" be damned 😀

thank you daveleo, I much value your inputs!
what can I say? I still 'kind of' like the photo, as mentioned it makes me smile and for me this is often the most positive thing any picture can do for me. Nevertheless I certainly agree with all of your and pretty much all of the other critiques given. This is why I feel a bit apologetic for not having offered a stronger photo.

possibly my better photos are some portraits, and that more because of the people being shown than of other merits, and wide open pics of flowers and such, showing the performance of the many old manual lenses that I play with. The later get the most positive reaction on flickr, and I may have developed some skills in 'composing with oof areas', but those would bother most of you even more, I reckon, and I feel that I have the possibility here to improve and that I most want with documentary, travel and street photography.

 

[kuuan]

Very good idea!

happy that you like the idea Frank!

I had mentioned 'Saddhus', the Indian mendicant, here is one

( anyone interested in those, here are many: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kuuan/sets/72157607731424404/ )

 

[Daniel Teoli Jr.]

I tried to look at your Flickr. Too much snapshot material. Make a 'best of' portfolio and use that in your sig line. That is my suggestion. Good luck!

 

[nongfuspring]

This one is much more engaging. The main issue for me is that it feels too narrowly framed for me to figure out what is actually happening, I wind up pulled in by the blunt central placement of the eyes but in the end frustrated by the lack of legibility. I think ideally this photo would have been taken with a wider lens and the composition placed off center to emphasise a broader sense of motion and to give enough content to make the action of the subject intelligible.

[in response to the picture of the guy smoking]

 

[kuuan]

Very spiritual 🙂

haha, if any of these mendicant 'Babas' is spiritual is to question, no doubt!
yes, the third hand is disturbing. Would cropping it out make it more 'serious'?
a portrait, a souvenir.. you are right. I remember a pro working for a famous magazine taking pics during these days of Shivaratri festival at Pashupatinath and I am sure he never got nearly as personal with the participants, thought this to be a strength of mine

It more and more dawns on me that I won't have much to offer that merits being critiqued here...thank you all for that, it is a great learning experience for me and already start to look at my pictures much more critical

 

[kuuan]

This one is much more engaging. The main issue for me is that it feels too narrowly framed for me to figure out what is actually happening, I wind up pulled in by the blunt central placement of the eyes but in the end frustrated by the lack of legibility. I think ideally this photo would have been taken with a wider lens and the composition placed off center to emphasise a broader sense of motion and to give enough content to make the action of the subject intelligible.

[in response to the picture of the guy smoking]

thank's a lot for the detailed critique, good points taken!
I had replaced the photo with another because I thought that possibly some could take offense of 'the smoker', since you already referred to it, here it is again:

 

[kuuan]

I see many, many pros in my field that should never be called Pros (where pro=good). That's another story for another day.

Have you seen this pro's work? Maybe his shots are brilliant. McCurry's Afghan girl didn't take much from him except a glance and a decision to aim at her. He didn't get personal with her. He just knew what he was doing. He gave a nod, he received a nod, he shot, he left. Yes, expert photographers have a magical way with the trigger. Years of experience are all packed in the eye and the finger.

No, I have not seen his work, would have loved to, and probably you are right and his pics are great. However I am not a pro and had a ball taking those while I found his way of taking pics very disturbing, disrespectful which had made me understand that I never would want to 'sweat' work the way he did, nor even be at such event 'on assignment' having to deliver

 

[kuuan]

You're touching a nerve here. An important point that amateurs should know.

True photographers are a Breed. They aim to "kill". They have nothing to do with weekend snappers that are offended by some critique, that are amateurs and are offended when they are called so. I'm talking in general terms and not pointing at anyone. But it is a Truth.

By the way, I like your Brad Pitt-ish smoking Guru. Very nice image.

sure you are right Ned, but then again my point was somewhat another. my distinction is not at all about who is more easily offended by critiques, but who is more respectful to their 'subjects', and those who aim 'to kill' certainly often aren't. If I really had to jeopardize my heartfelt relations with my subjects to get better photos than am much more happy with my weaker photos instead. 🙂 ( and therefore also won't easily feel offended by critiques of my photos. it's all just a learning experience and above all fun! )

oh, happy that you rather like the smoker. maybe not on the same level, just for curiosity, some of these folks loved to pose quite theatrically 😉

 

[Brian Legge]

Back on your first photo and description of why it captured your attention -

I like your concept you were attempting to capture. Its interesting to me that no one really picked up the intent of the photo until you described it.

Part of this may be due to the number of focal points in the image. All the faces are drawing much more attention than the cutter itself. Maybe a lower camera angle, showing less of the salesman - almost table level and upwards - would have highlighted the action and item while still capturing the crowd? Or perhaps an image like this would work better as part of a series focused on the topic?

 

[kuuan]

This picture, I HIGHLY appreciate the fact that his left hand isn't connecting with the Horn. That alone makes it or breaks it.
Yes I'm tough, but that's how I also judge my stuff.

haha, after 'the third hand' I almost expected this. Had not felt it disturbing 'that time' when I posted this photo at my flickr ( from where I host the pics shown ) but now, after the 'third hand', it did and had thought for a moment to crop that roof out, for sake of speedy answer had not.
thank's again for the great learning journey offered!

 

[leica M2 fan]

Am enjoying these posts much more than the "brutally frank critiques". Certainly well presented and the responses are a little kinder than on the other critiques.

 

[Jamie Pillers]

...
my preference is not posting a new thread for every other photo, but for each member having his 'own' thread presenting his own photos only. In this way every photographer can present his work, possibly explain his views his photography and photography in general and it is easy to come back to view critiques received.
what do you guys think?

We have a forum for this sort of thing already. Its called the "Critique/Salon" forum. Its located near the bottom of the forum list on the home page. 🙂

 

[The Meaness]

About the original image, I agree with Daveleo. You had a very good idea about the crowds gathering to watch the vegetable cutter. You also captured an ideal moment to show the viewer what is going on - that the slice of cucumber is flying off.

The problem is really with your actual subject - the crowd. Others have said that the details don't line up to make the image work. I would add that their expressions are full of "dead ends" - eyes don't lead you anywhere and/or the expression doesn't have a clear and/or consistent emotion.

I originally couldn't see anything to like about this photo until you shared your idea, now I "get it". I think if you have the opportunity to keep going back and working it until the proverbial stars align, you will eventually get a hit. You need the people in the crowd to convey what you see/feel internally or the viewer remains lost.

As far as the other images, I don't like the first portrait personally. It does have strong "figure to ground", which is good. However, I think the expression looks slightly strained/posed. I am not sure what the "3rd hand" means (but this could be a great element, I just might not understand), and the blown highlights in the top right are distracting to me.

The "smoke portrait" is great - it has an interesting perspective, it is intimate, mysterious, and uses the tones in the smoke and skin on the left of his face to "blend" them together to the viewer, which contributes to the mystery. Very nice.

Thanks for opening yourself up to critique! It is very brave.

 

[FrankS]

Yes Jamie, but now we can be robustly frank without fear of hurting feelings.

The other thing that I prefer about this one photographer/one thread format, is we get to see several of the photographers pictures and develop a better sense of their work.