newbie please critique

[lollypop]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7850300@N07/465224643/in/photostream/

Obviously i have altered this on photoshop generally i am pleased with the composition, i added a border desaturated and altered contrast and brightness. Please be very critical and feel free to edit as its for college

 

[lollypop]

anyone?

 

[The_Traveler]

Inevitably someone will think it is cool but I think this is very self-consciously arty.

 

[lollypop]

I am at art school!!!

 

[The_Traveler]

Well then, your classmates will love it.

 

[lollypop]

do i detect a hint sarcasm? I didnt go out of my way to be "artsy" but i generally like this sort of style, i like to adapt and alter my work and because alot of the skills and techniques i am learning now are new i may be implementing them all at once and this may make my images look overtly arty but i'll find my feet

 

[The_Traveler]

do i detect a hint sarcasm?

Maybe a titch.

But, my attitude towards this kind of heavy style, low reproduction quality photos is that they can be achieved almost casually and the work of skilled photographers are often completely indistinguishable from that of the rankest amateur. So style is trumping talent by valuing the low effort result, everyone-is-cool kind of result.
.

 

[lollypop]

Let me assure you i thought carefully about composition and shot this on a d70 with a macro lens and had lots of layers in photoshop- even if this isnt a "great" photography dont under estimate the amount of time or effort put into this image. I dont consider my self a complete amature- but i m still studying photography and learning.

I think you are a fan of straight or pure photography.

 

[The_Traveler]

I think you made my point.

You put lots of skill, effort and expertise to create a shot that could easily have come from a completely novice person with a cell phone camera.

 

[lollypop]

I hope what you say is not true:meh:

 

[newrmdmike]

you said it, cell phones. thats exactly what this reminds me of . . .
i don't like it, i think that if your putting thought into somthing and working on it hard that it shouldn't be able to be reproduced by EVERYONE.

 

[The_Traveler]

I hope what you say is not true

I hope everything I say is true. What I said is no reflection on your abilities but this photo you have posted as an object for critique.

I am a fan of talent and beauty. I am not much interested in 'stylish', conceptual things that have no need for talent but are only a passing idea made fact.

If Michaelangelo cast gold into the shape of a dog-turd and then painted it until it was perfect, absolutely indistinguishable from the real thing, would I prize it? It might be an object of curiousity but it wouldn't make my heart go bump because the true value of talent is the production of wonderful things that only the talented can produce, not the production of the same object that any dog's butt can manage easily.

 

[RedDevilUK]

if this is a picture advertising that piercing... then OK

if its ART... i have to agree with the above and say it doesnt speak to me

as far as a Photo goes... its got good depth of field and focus, and lighting is ok

so on the plus side, your camera skills are OK, just need another angle (so to speak)

 

[JustAMom]

i agree with the traveler if im to be honest. its just not my style. i cant really say if its a good photo or not but i get ipctures le tat on accident and i drag and drop them straight to the trash bin and render them "unusable"

but i dont think i could create that efftect by trying to i commend your hard work and dedication to acheive the look you were going for.

 

[newrmdmike]

since nobody has ventured into a true critique here goes:

i think that this image is compositionally challenged, they say your eye is drawn to the sharp parts of an image, and here it is the piercing and part of the eye, so i look back and forth between those two areas, which alone don't hold much, and together challenge each other for the viewers attention. also, the well defined side of the face with the black out of focus leads to a third sharp point of the photo, the strands of hair, further confusing my eye for a point of interest (not that you must always have a point of interest)

finally the whole right half of the frame is out of focus white/grey. why didn't you shoot with more of the subject in the frame and less of the nothing?