A Flower, A Grasshopper, A Goose, Another Goose, A Duck, and Some Gulls

AgentDrex · Aug 11, 2011

Just some shots from yesterday afternoon after work. I'm starting to get a little better, but not much.

#1 - Grasshopper and Flower

#2 - Duck in Flight

#3 - Not Talking

#4 - Gull Poop Party

powasky · Aug 11, 2011

#1- It's all right, but looks soft to me. Nothing really jumps out and says "THIS IS A COOL PHOTO!" even though I know it could be.

#2- I didn't even see the bird flying until I saw the title of the photo. I got distracted by the grate on the right side. Also look soft.

#3- There's too much water at the bottom. It also isn't contrasty enough...it's almost hard to see the geese.

#4- Noisy, and busy. It looks like a snapshot to me. The whites on the gulls are blown out.

Ron Evers · Aug 11, 2011

#1 is a coneflower or echinacea. The shot looks a bit on the warm side but maybe it was shot in the late evening.

#3 would look better if you had a wider view placing the geese on the thirds mark. As it is they are crowding the edge of the frame.

The_Traveler · Aug 11, 2011

I've noticed your posts, they stand out because you spend a lot of energy being funny.

Why not divert a tiny bit of that energy into looking hard at your pictures and deciding what is wrong or right with them and including that in your posting?

That way everything you hear will be new to you.

Lew

D-B-J · Aug 11, 2011

1. Check out rule of thirds. I also would have tried this in a vertical or "portrait" crop.
2. This scene has potential, but the goose? is too small in the frame, and get's lost in the blurry background (I assume from panning).
3. Cute scene, and the title definitely adds to it, but a smaller aperture to allow for some background separation would have helped greatly.
4. Nice, but strikes me as a snapshot and not a planned or intentionally composed shot.

Overall, they are also slightly on the warm side.

Regards,
Jake

AgentDrex · Aug 11, 2011

Ah, good critique The_Traveler...I will chew on that thought for awhile, thank you. Thank you as well to the rest of the commenters/critiquers.

For the comments/critiques of the soft look of these photos, I'm shooting old glass I get from various places such as shopgoodwill.com, keh.com and a local thrift store. These lenses generally aren't very sharp nor do I necessarily want them to be so. I kind of find myself attracted to soft, noisy photos.

Per suggestion, here are three things I like and don't like about the photos:

#1
Likes: Colors, subject positioning, the lighter-shaded petals on the right drawing attention to the grasshopper
Dislikes: The aberrant stem thing at the bottom, the lack of fill light on the left side of the flower, landscape orientation

#2
Likes: The grate on the right balancing the photo, the contrast of the duck and the grass behind it, the slight blur to the ducks wings
Dislikes: The OOF background (I think everything being in focus would have made me happier with this photo), the positioning of the grate (should have been more to the right), only one duck

#3
Likes: The separation of the geese from each other and the overly close proximity to the edge of the frame makes me feel that these geese are having a "Not Talking to You" moment, the extra water at the bottom makes me feel as though they are even more distant, the catch-lights in their eyes
Dislikes: The ripples in bottom right of photo, the feathers in the background, the line of sludge next to the goose on the right

#4
Likes: The feeling of a motivational poster (When Gulls Crap on Your Floor, Fly High), the three section look (trees, rocks, parking/crapping lot), the cutoff gull top-middle left
Dislikes: blown highlights, what are they all looking at, all that poop everywhere...ev-a-ree-where!