Critiques

leiju (1697) 2010-03-11 2:16

Quelle photo absolument magnifique! Les couleurs sont incroyables, le cadrage parfait, la netteté sublime. Vraiment, un travail parfait!

leiju (1697) 2009-11-25 7:18

Hey, interesting picture, as said by so many before me.
If I may allow myself to simply comment on your note: as You talk about dowry here I am a bit confused. Dowry is usually paid by the bride's family to the husband's, however here You mention a sum paid to the bride's family? If it is as You describe it, then it is a bride price. Not trying to be picky, just trying to clarify which way the transaction goes as I find it quite an intriguing custom.

Thanks for bringing back such an intriguing shot!
We truly are an amazingly diverse specie with an endless variety of ways to build our existence!

  leiju (1697) 2009-08-23 0:55

I must agree with Jorge here!
This is a portrait of two tourists more than anything else. Had your comment described the difference between ancient and modern cultures, I would have more than understood your choice of composition and content. But now, the wall around the couple looks like nothing more than a frame for their portrait. By including the couple, You have stolen the spotlight from the ancient carvings and rendered them mundane tourist attraction-style frames.
It has become one of those more-than-too-often-seen "I was there" holiday pictures and I believe has no real place on TE... unless, of course, your note was different :)

I hope You do not take offence!
All the best,
Julia

leiju (1697) 2009-05-03 15:42

A trail of gold speckles raining onto our Hearts;
A trail of Light, Joy and Love filled from within;
A hint of giggle; a splash of freedom; a tickle of warmth;

A picture worth more than a thought;
A Moment captured within a non-existent frame;

Sometimes something moves us from within, even when we don't know why; this picture did just that to me, and I allowed myself to play around, to smile, to chuckle within, with a pinch of lustful Joy. I hope You don't mind :)

Thank You for sharing such an inspiring picture!
Julia

leiju (1697) 2009-02-25 4:26

Dear Takero,

What a lovely shot! The colours are strong, the bokeh just right, the depth of field well chosen and the precise moment that you managed to capture captivating in itself. The detail we want to see is right there to be seen, just as is the context. All in all a wonderful picture that tells a story!

If I were to nitpick, however, I would complain about the girl being so central in the picture. If you are one for cropping, I would remove some bit of the picture starting from the left and up to the first girls side hairline, just so that the main girl may be more off the centre and hence better anchored in the shot.

All in all a wonderful moment well captured :)
TFS!
Julia

leiju (1697) 2009-02-25 4:21

An interesting scene!
I wish the file was bigger though. There is a lot of noise in the foliage as well as in the waterfall... the picture in itself weighs only 59kb, which is tiny! It seems like a compressed pictures and that in itself is a pity, as there is much more space on this website, for something much bigger and richer in detail!
I also wonder whether you have cropped the original file or whether your camera shoots this shape pictures automatically... It would have perhaps been nice to see more of a vertical shot of this place, to give us a little bit of a wider idea of what the waterfall itself is like and where it ends. I must admit I like the composition here, with the wide lush green foliage on many layers and the waterfall itself arranged on a diagonal towards the bottom half of the image, but I would like to see much more.

When looking at the picture, I want to see more detail and from further away.
Do you have a bigger file of the picture?

In addition to this, it is really not necessary to use the flash in such a condition. Rather, using it here almost forces the camera to overexpose and flatten out the picture as it is trying to compensate for the lack of a return light.

In any case, TFS!
Julia

leiju (1697) 2009-02-24 13:30

A regular street sight, the kind that brings us into the place, a worthwhile contribution, IMO.
However, it would have been about ten worlds better if the man had been sitting towards us rather than away. Now we are excluded from the scene, we remain passers-by, voyeurs, tourists...

Because the man is turned away, we are left wandering around the image, with no easy point to fix, nowhere to lay our eyes upon. The sign atop is slightly too high and out of the way to jump at us straight away. I allowed myself to post a cropped version of the picture in the workshop, to try and tackle the issue by tightening the scene, making the brick wall part of the frame to this diagonal escape into space. I'm not sure it works, I would be grateful if You could let me know what You think of this approach :)

Thanks for sharing!

leiju (1697) 2009-02-24 12:07

It's been more than a year... but I still take the time to write words that will probably never reach those to whom they are intended.

I followed the link from the homepage featuring Polonaise's "critique" of this shot. I read all the comments and browsed through the replies and can't help but laugh at the silliness of us dear humans.

While many admire your work for its technical qualities, its razor sharpness and perfectly balanced everything and while I can do nothing but congratulate you for our outstanding work, I must admit that this "controversial" shot is probably one of the pictures I like best. It has nothing to do with the face, which is more than obvious, but rather with the space you leave for Nature. All your other images are so perfectly composed that they take Nature onto an advertisement platform, leaving it stripped from its rough beauty. Here at least, there is something to feel.

Yes, it is absolutely contrary to whatever technical masterpieces You have managed to create, and so disturbs those running behind the bandwagon of perfected and human mastered landscapes. But at least with this image, You have managed to pass beyond perfected tourism shots to tangible Life.

A name for your picture?
How about The Chill of Existence?

Don't hide it, celebrate it! It tells much more than the stunning technically perfect masterpieces ever will...

leiju (1697) 2009-01-11 7:59

Hoi.... une photo tout à fait surprenante! On se croirait dans un autre monde, près du pôle Nord! Une composition tout à fait merveilleuse avec des couleurs à l'aube, comme je les aime tant :)
Tu as cherché ces arbres longtemps, ou tu connais déjà le coin comme le fond de ta poche? ;)

Merci pour ce partage!

  leiju (1697) 2008-07-14 22:50

Classic case of digital solar eclipse (when there is a light that is too dark it burns itself out to a black image on digital cameras)... amazing that so many people believe you and think this is a true case of solar eclipse!

Nice composition nevertheless!
Julia