Ok - Following the rules - and ready to accept criticism

-- Chris Rustage (Chris@amateur.co.uk), May 12, 2000

Answers

Chris, you said in your last post:

"I appreciate the fact that Ive broken the 1 image a week rule, and promise not to do it again. Chris Rustage" Well, I guess you lied. This is your third post in a week. Are you having a little trouble concentrating?

As for the picture, try not centering the subject unless there's a good reason to do so. This picure would look better with the right one-fourth cropped off. Better yet, you could have moved your vantage point so that you avoided the dark area at the top altogether, and framed the flower off center. For instance, to use the old "rule of thirds" axiom, place the flower about 1/3 of the way from the right edge and 1/3 from the top of the frame.

This is just a snapshot of a very common flower. Sorry.

-- Ross Warner (ross.warner@East.sun.com), May 12, 2000.

Who wrote the rules - 1 image a week is not enough - www.amateur.co.uk Thanks for the advice, I will follow it, and try again with a more intresting subject. I took this as well, but didnt want to upload it incase I got grief from you guys :-)
http://www.amateur.co.uk/Display.asp?Image=Rockswater.jpg

-- Chris Rustage (Chris@amateur.co.uk), May 12, 2000.

I think one of the main reasons for limiting posting to 1 image per week is to make sure everyone is posting what they consider to be their best work, as well as to keep the list of images short so everyone gets some feedback. If it was 3 images per week and everyone did that, who would have time to critique all of them? Really, more images would mean less feedback, so it would be self defeating.

As for your photo, I am not a big fan of the old don't take a picture unless it is interesting. You can make something interesting out of nothing. With this shot, you've done a pretty good job of isolating the flower, both with depth of field, and by the fact that there are no others in the picture. It might be more effective if there was some interesting lighting that lit the flower and not much of the grass. A single flower in a large area is interesting if you capture it properly.

I like the centered composition because there is only the one flower. I'd rather not have the budding one just behind it, but what's there is there. The background at the top is distracting too.

Finally, was whatever medium you scanned this from dirty? There seem to be spots. These really hurt the quality of the image. Presentation is important.

Anyway, you seem a bit frustrated with this forum. Keep at it. I've learned a lot here.

-- Patrick Feltmate (pfeltmat@tupmcms1.med.dal.ca), May 12, 2000.

The background, the shadowy foreground, and the budding flower here are a bit distracting. Your depth of field is great for isolating that flower, though, and there is good detail on the flower. Perhaps a crop is in order. 2 minutes in Photoshop got me this doctored crop:

As for the water and rocks link you sneaked in, I like the composition. It's got good potential (but the size of that file is a killer!). I personally think I'd like to see it in color so the moss stands out from the rocks, and maybe with a polarizer to remove the glare of the water in the lower part of the photo and reveal the dark tones of the rock underneath. These are just my preferences, though; I shoot waterfalls a lot and the effects I describe are what works for me.

Don't get frustrated by what you read here -- think of it as tough love. Look at it this way: if no one wanted to help you improve your photos, there would be no replies at all; the fact that you're getting feedback (frustrating as it may be) should therefore signify that we care. Yeah, you broke the rules again, but I'll get over it.

-- Christian Deichert (torgophile@aol.com), May 13, 2000.