Bash away, experts.

cgipson1 · Jan 15, 2012

#1.. nice shot.. a bit more fill (flash) would have reduced the bright sun highlights... and made it pop more

#2 good motion stop... would have been better with greater DOF... what is the subject (the almost out of frame guy with the camera? or the centered golfer?). The head tilt and camera of the guy on the right leads the eye to the OOF golfer... so there is no obvious subject.

#3 WB is off.. or PP is bad... crop is questionable... again.. what is the subject?? Guy with hat.. or the cactus?

#4 at least the subjects are obvious here.. but there is a really distracting background.. and you cut the subjects in half. Would have been much better in vertical format, centered on the subjects, with all of them and the bike showing.....

So at least you have some of the basics.. but I don't see anything here to justify you calling the knowledgable people here pompous idiots.... when you obviously know very little about composition yourself.

vandal said:
Because people with pompous-ass attitudes and condescending tones deserve to have their bubbles of pseudo elitism popped, that's why.

EDIT.. in regards to your title... I do not consider myself an expert, especially when compared to some of the others here... but since you and I were having some hostility, I thought I would give you an honest critique as best I could. I didn't try to cover everything.. just the most obvious.

ph0enix · Jan 15, 2012

@OP:
I don't want to start any new drama but let me let you in on a little secret: <whisper> KmH is one of the real experts here </whisper>

MLeeK · Jan 15, 2012

1 seems to have a processing halo around the guy. There's also a spot of missed masking on the guy's sleeve where it's dark enough to match the sky exposure. It's a beautiful shot. The composition leads you through the image in a different way and I really like it.

2.Kinda neat. Color feels a little magenta.

3 I am not feeling the love here for a few reasons. The semi-desaturated look is just odd. The guy in the wheel chair looks kinda like an elf or a leprechaun among huge plants. I'd expect him to be vibrant in color. He almost looks like a paste in here even though he's not. It looks like you have edited the background to enhance the depth of field and that's helping to make him look like he was dropped in from another image. Or your background was dropped into his image It's more of a Gaussian blur.
The plants make it really interesting and it's something I'd like to see more shots from!

4.The composition leaves to be desired. It's just... there. The subjects are interesting. Color is very warm The shallow DOF works nicely to separate the characters from the rest of the image

cgipson1 · Jan 15, 2012

Well. I guess he left... too bad! That first shot was pretty decent!

Joel_W · Jan 15, 2012

Since there are no photos in Vandal's post, I'm assuming he just deleted them. Guess I was just to busy watching the Giants win a story book game against the Packers instead of hanging out here.

cgipson1 · Jan 15, 2012

Joel_W said:
Since there are no photos in Vandal's post, I'm assuming he just deleted them. Guess I was just to busy watching the Giants win a story book game against the Packers instead of hanging out here.

Yea.. I doubt that he had ever had them honestly C&C'd before.. and wasn't expecting less than perfection. But who knows?

MLeeK · Jan 15, 2012

You didn't miss anything special. It was all a LOT of photoshop time. One was double processed because the subject originally was underexposed. And rather poorly done as he had a halo around the guy's head and his editing was incomplete on part of the guy's arm. It was sharp and a very nice image if he had finished with the double processing properly.

The second was a photo of a guy taking a photo of a golfer. It was... well... It wasn't BAD in any way, but it was just a photo that felt crammed at both edges with nothing in the middle.

The third had some major gaussain blur from the sidewalk back applied and it was just bizarre.

The 4th was a couple of drag queens dressed down and driving a golf cart down the street. Dreds and all... It was well focused and exposed. But otherwise? It was just there. Centered and boring and rather orange. Blah.

Bitter Jeweler · Jan 15, 2012

Damn! I missed it while driving home!

MLeeK · Jan 15, 2012

hell, it's about time YOU missed something. I always make the mistake of going to sleep and I miss everything.

ph0enix · Jan 15, 2012

cgipson1 said:
Well. I guess he left... too bad! That first shot was pretty decent!

You scared him away!

bentcountershaft · Jan 15, 2012

Judging from the time on each post, this guy posted pics, had time to read one response (which was quite tame) and then deleted the shots? What a *****.