Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
As soon as I saw these I wanted to photograph them. Composing the shot was difficult.
ISO 100, 241 mm, f/10, 1.3 sec.
I like the composition, Don, and the b&w works well with the strong lines. If you have an opportunity to repeat, I think focus stacking would work very well with this subject and composition.
This is very, very cool!! The slightly wavy lines and the varying tonalities work so well!! I can imagine there were a lot of possibilities here. Maybe we’ll get to enjoy some more? Looks like a target-rich environment!
Nice geometry and details; well converted the B&W too. Peter, this reminds me a bit of some of Tony Kuyper’s recent cactus images. Well seen and captured. You might want to look at some of the stray marks on the flat area of the leaves to see if any could be distractions to remove. This is a matter of how you see them as enhancing or distracting from the image.
Thanks very much for the comments.
Dennis, you’re right. At least I should have used a significantly smaller aperture. This is a shot I can take again and I think I will.
Larry, I did zap a few distracting flaws, but mostly I left them in. Cactus isn’t flawless.
Don: I like this. It made me think and observe carefully which is a good thing. One thing that works on my mind is the landscape presentation of vertical lines. I tend to see comps more naturally in portrait orientation so my preconceived expectation for shooting a subject like this would be to shoot it in portrait. When you go back I would be curious about a vertical comp but again, I enjoyed having to stretch my thinking a little. Well done. >=))>
Hi Don. I really like how you were seeing the repetition of lines/patterns in this intimate image. Contrary to @Bill_Fach 's comment about preferring vertical lines in a vertical format, I believe it creates a visual tension and shows more repetition by keeping it within a horizontal framing. Both are right answers, though! The one thing that I would suggest is you look at not having such a wide and bright band pretty much down the middle of the frame; while it does have a counterpoint light area on the right, it is still pretty strong being in the middle and that tends to split the image a bit in my opinion. I’m glad you can get back there to keep working this scene! It has a lot of potential.
Bill, Brenda, thanks for the comments.
Bill, I took one in portrait orientation but I didn’t like the result. Landscape orientation seemed to work better here.
Brenda, I’ll try reducing the brightness in the middle. Although I boosted the overall contrast, I didn’t change the relative brightness of the different bands very much.
Interesting observation, @brenda_tharp – I think the brighter centered area is what made the image jump out to me – in a good way. But now you have me thinking about it more critically. I wonder if it would change things to crop in from the left just enough to remove the whatever-it’s-called (lighter area) at the left edge? But that’s not to suggest that I think the image could be improved – I love it!
