Critique these, dont pull punches

Designer · Oct 9, 2015

Shoe shot has possibilities, but should have been framed slightly differently.

KenC · Oct 9, 2015

The shoe shot is not bad. It shows the texture and color from down on their level, which shows that they've been through a lot. It would have been better to try a different angle to eliminate or minimize the glare on the left and to crop tighter on the sides - at least that's my two cents ...

Derrel · Oct 9, 2015

Shoe shot needed more space for the shoes to point into...they are aimed toward the short side of the frame, which is visually disturbing and creates imbalance, so this is basically a poor framing decision. The New Holland swather is okay, but the red watermark ruins it...black would be better. It's a fairly formal, reportorial shot, so the exaggerated blues in the sky hurt it and it is framed just a little bit too tightly. I think the camera guy is kind of amusing, and I recall having seen that shot before...it screams "camera club outing!", which I find kind of cute, kind of amusing. The bald sky strip hurts a bit.

BananaRepublic · Oct 9, 2015

KenC said:
The shoe shot is not bad. It shows the texture and color from down on their level, which shows that they've been through a lot. It would have been better to try a different angle to eliminate or minimize the glare on the left and to crop tighter on the sides - at least that's my two cents ...

Derrel said:
Shoe shot needed more space for the shoes to point into...they are aimed toward the short side of the frame, which is visually disturbing and creates imbalance, so this is basically a poor framing decision. The New Holland swather is okay, but the red watermark ruins it...black would be better. It's a fairly formal, reportorial shot, so the exaggerated blues in the sky hurt it and it is framed just a little bit too tightly. I think the camera guy is kind of amusing, and I recall having seen that shot before...it screams "camera club outing!", which I find kind of cute, kind of amusing. The bald sky strip hurts a bit.

The shoes were actually my first attempt at doing something with a DSLR a few years ago when I knew even less then I do now, I printed it and I hated it cause what I had done to it afterward on the PC was awful and things were and are not sharp but it came first in my club grade at the time, three years later Ive not won anything which is worse probably.

I was thinking the Combine was oven glove myself, the watermark will not be there its just went default on LR
Thanks for the feed back...

Designer · Oct 9, 2015

BananaRepublic said:
.. it came first in my club grade at the time, three years later Ive not won anything which is worse probably.

It's nearly impossible to predict how judges will grade a photo, but they probably liked it because it was "not the normal shot" that most club members would have produced.

As to not winning anything since; that just means either you or the judges need to start looking at things differently.

timor · Oct 9, 2015

I would give some thought to the signature. Banana Republic is a known brand. Not doing too well, they just fired the creative director. Nevertheless...

BananaRepublic · Oct 9, 2015

Designer said:
BananaRepublic said:

.. it came first in my club grade at the time, three years later Ive not won anything which is worse probably.

Click to expand...

It's nearly impossible to predict how judges will grade a photo, but they probably liked it because it was "not the normal shot" that most club members would have produced.

As to not winning anything since; that just means either you or the judges need to start looking at things differently.

timor said:
I would give some thought to the signature. Banana Republic is a known brand. Not doing too well, they just fired the creative director. Nevertheless...

I try to do things that are different to what is normal at that club but what I find is people have been inculcated into certain genres and they don't recognise most things outside of that Im often asked "What is that" or "Is that a violin"--no its actually a double bass maybe if I smashed it over your head you'd recognise it. :eyebrows:

As for the Banana Republic thing its a dig at the country I'm from Ireland and its politics. They dont trade in Europe I don't think Ive only ever seen an outlet in the US.

Jim Walczak · Oct 9, 2015

These are just my own opinions, so please use them as such.

I like the shot of the New Holland combine...I certainly think it has the best potential of the 3. I love the symmetry there, however I might back off on the saturation just a bit...at least with the sky. The color of the sky doesn't seem quite natural to me...seems like the sky should be a bit lighter and a bit bluer. Also, you have a bit of something very red off in the background there...I'm sure it's just a farm or something and I didn't really notice it at first glance, but after looking at the image a bit closer, it started to draw my attention. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to clone it out (although that would be an option) but I might desaturate the bright reds there so that it's not so obvious.

I like composition of the shot of the shoes, however looking at it closely, something about the DOF seems off. I'm not sure if it's the angle or just that you should have stopped the lens down a bit. There also seems to be a bit of a white line or halo around the shoe to the left side of the image (also at the back edge of the shoe on the right)...if I had to make a guess, it would either be over-sharpened or perhaps the use of a high pass filter. Either way, again I like the composition, but I'd probably re-process the original with a bit less heavy-handedness.

As far as the shot of the photographer goes, too many mistakes...too much room at the top of the image, color seems off and the composition as a whole seems awkward (you said not to pull punches).

Hope this helps!