Critiques

mitternacht (1836) 2008-09-26 12:55

Hi Izzet,
Very graphic indeed! I like how the perspective is so flat that the different parts look like overlapping sheets of different patterns and colors.

Best regards,
Simon

  mitternacht (1836) 2008-05-14 4:38

this looks much prettier than cement blocks to me...

mitternacht (1836) 2007-06-23 17:29

Hi Jack,
Nicely composed shot, I like that there are cares everywhere! It's nice that you can see that the sign is as old as the cars. It doesn't seem like there have been any recent additions here :)

Simon

mitternacht (1836) 2007-06-17 12:49

Very beautiful smile! He looks very content. I like the simplicity here, almost no clothes, clean background, etc. Nice and sharp photo.

mitternacht (1836) 2007-06-17 12:41

Hi Helmut,
Nice and shot, he looks so relaxed. B&W works really well here. I like the texture on the ground from the shadows of the leaves...

/Simon

mitternacht (1836) 2007-06-17 11:56

Hi Rabani,
This is an erie looking scene, the light is strange! Thanks for the informative note, btw. It's nice like this without the moon, having the moon would have made a decent exposure impossible and would have given away the reason for the strange light. The smoothnes of the blurred out palm leaves gives an interesting effect. You managed to control the people well, that they're so still increases the erie impression because you wouldn't expect to see people in a moonlight picture like this. Very nice shot!

Btw, is that the shadow from your tripod in the lower left corner?

/Simon

mitternacht (1836) 2007-06-17 11:48

Hi Daniel,
I like the soft colors too. It's a classic simple composition. It's funny because it feels like I've seen this photo before, but then with a kid eating the ice cream :) Somehow it seems unusual to see an adult sitting on her eating ice cream like that. I like the withering mural in the back.

/Simon

mitternacht (1836) 2007-06-17 6:52

Hi Grant,
Nowadays, when TE is so huge and there are hundreds or thousands of photos posted every day, the photos that get lots of critiques are the ones that are published by photographers that write a lot of critiques themselves. As I see it there are two aspects of this, one is a sort of reward-system, "you comment my photo, I'll comment yours", but it's also a way to keep in touch. In the early days there were only say 50-100 photos posted each day, so if you wanted to, there was no problem in looking at them all and noticing when there was a new member with interesting photos, but that's certainly not possible anymore.

The "quality" of the photo is of course not unimportant, usually the photographers that are very active here are very good ones so it's not that their photos don't deserve the positive critiques they get - but one often sees excellent photos that hardly get any response at all, most likely due to the fact that the photographer isn't very active in writing critiques. I bet you can find tons of discussions about this in the forums.

Regarding this photo, it does look very familiar, as you wrote yourself, Venice has been photographed before. But there's nothing "wrong" with it. Technically there are some things that could be improved though the photo lacks the finish that makes it crisp and clear and not just another snapshot. First of all I must say that I don't think every photo has to be technically perfect to be interesting, I myself like toy camera (holga, lomo, etc) pictures a lot. But, in my opinion, a postcard-style photo like this should be really sharp. A little touch of unsharp mask with radius 0.2-0.3 would make a big difference. For my taste the contrast is a little too harsh, the white areas are blown out and the dark areas have no definition. If you look at the histogram of this photo there are large peaks at both the white and the black end, indicative of too much contrast. The third thing that I think could be improved is having a natural sky rather than the tobacco gradient. All these things are of course a matter of opinion. Composition-wise I think this photo is excellent, you might not want to have a pole overlapping with the church-tower though, perhaps a slightly higher POV would work better?

Regards,
Simon

mitternacht (1836) 2007-06-04 17:37

Hi Jack,
This picture really stands out from your thumbnail gallery with the big shiny tuba. It's funny, all these people have totally different, crazy, styles. I like the saturated colors. The big shiny circle in the top really makes this picture interesting, or, it's what makes it stand out. I tried to spot your reflection but I didn't manage...

/Simon

mitternacht (1836) 2007-06-04 17:25

Nice shot!

A sort of funny detail is that she's wearing this really crazy wig and those glasses but her clothes look dull and ordinary. The overcast sky and greyish tone of the picture also give a somewhat contradicting impression. Imagine what this would look like in perfect sunshine and with happy people in colorful clothes in the background.

/Simon