Ratfinkz's 52 -Art and Isolation added :)

Lovely looking dog Sarah - I think you've just missed the focus on the eyes though.
 
Thanks for the comments :) Andy, no-one was teasing him with biscuit - he was staring at my friends son - who was also taking a photo - he's a right poser for the camera!

Paul - thanks for the comment, I quite 'like' the slightly softer eyes :)

Sarah - thanks :) I'm really chuffed with this one - I too think it's my fave so far
 
Hi Sarah,

I'm trying to get round to all the 52's this week and comment, and rather than go through all your shots and give you one-liners I'll just pick a couple with some detail if that's OK!

Well done for catching up!

My favourite is Speed. It's not just a regular light trail, it's taken at that time of day where the car headlights add to the ambient light and light up the side of the road. It's almost given it a kind of HDR appearance.

As to curves, the reshoot works much better. I've been doing a lot of B&W recently, and a lot of the critique I've had (especially from college) is around finding a complete range of tones in your picture. Imagine a black & white rainbow from black to white. You should try to have a good balance of tones in your image. I'm still trying to get my head round this but your image looks flat across the tonal ranges (i.e. a lot of the picture is one shade of grey). If you're willing to reshoot, try it in a darker room, with a single focussed light source (but not a powerful wash out light like an on-camera flash). This will give you an extreme example (lots of light and shadow) that might work better.

Hope that helps. Not sure if I got across what I was trying to say... Too wordy at times...

Ian.
 
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Single, the eggs work much better, more depth to them. Excellent colour backdrop, I agree about the bit of extra space though. I like it. I get what's going on with the jelly babies, but I think the coating is causing some issues... nice idea though.

I really like stare... really intent staring too and a lovely portrait of the dog. I think the eyes are a little soft too, looks like it's the tip of the nose that's sharp. It's well lit and I think the catchlight in the eye helps to mask the softness a bit.
 
wek 17 - peace

17peace.jpg
 
Ah bless... Peace... spot on theme. It's a lovely image Sarah.

A couple of things that spring to mind from a technical point of view (not that I am qualified to comment on such things :lol: I miss far too much when I'm shooting...) the radiator doesn't make a good backdrop, and whilst it might have been tricky to do without waking them up, I find the patch of skin on the upper right a little distracting from the main subject of the photo.
 
Bang on theme and a nice shot for the album there.

I'm not so bothered about the radiator, but there's something missing in the frame for me. Could be that it needs a contrast boost, or a bit of extra saturation on that shirt. Or it could be that the levels need some work to brighten the image a bit. Could just be me though.

Hope that helps!

Ian.
 
As above . . . :love: Beautiful capture and perfect for the theme.
Definitely one worth printing off.

I agree with John on the couple of technical points. Definitely something to bear in mind for any future shots, although in this particular instance the background doesn't really bother me that much.

The other thing I notice is the focal point. To me it looks like the focus is on his ear. It would have worked better if you could have got his eye in sharp focus.
Again, not really bothering me much in this particular one as his eyes are closed, but something to bear in mind for the future.
 
All good constructive points above for you Sarah, so I'd just like to say a nice one for the family album, certainly says peace, keep 'em coming:thumbs:
 
Week 18 - indulgence.

Chocolate orange to me is the biggest indulgence ever, plus I indulged a 'want' of mine - and made my first ever tryptech.

I don't like the red and black border - but was best colour I could find to go with photos - if anyone has suggestions as to differerent colours - feel free to suggest!

Also not 100% pleased with the fact the first pic has less purple on top than the second two - a point I will work on if I reshoot.

18-induldenge.jpg
 
week 19 - reshoot - single

I had the stuff all set up to do this, as I checked the weeks theme - so my reshoot for this week is single.

I hope to have a go at ingrediants before the end of the week too.

19-reshoot-single.jpg
 
Indulgence made me chuckle. We have a cople of chocolate orange fiends in our house too :). I think the tryptich works well to tell the story, but the red background seems out of place. No idea what to suggest as a replacement though - so not very helpful!

I also like your reshoot. That single drop of water on the lone egg somehow reminds me of a tear. Egg shells have lots of texture if you get close up, and you can just see it in your shot. I can see what you're trying to do with the empty cups, but they're not doing much more than distracting me to be honest. Maybe just one additional empty cup to emphasise "singleness" might work, or even doing away with them altogether.

Just my opinion though. I'm frequently wrong!

Ian.
 
:eek: Did you eat that entire chocolate orange?
The things we do in the name of art :lol: :lol: :lol:

I think this is my favourite from your 52 so far :thumbs: (although "stare" comes close)
The triptych works brilliantly to tell the story and the blue backdrop really makes the orange stand out.
It's a bit hard to tell at that size, but each individual image looks to be good in its own right too.
As for the border, I think I would have stuck with plain black and white.

Reshoot : A huge improvement on the original shot. Much sharper and the background has worked a lot better.
:thumbs: You're putting a huge amount of effort into this project. I hope that you're enjoying it.
 
:agree: indulgence is excellent, and the triptych works well with the images... Love the backdrop for this, it looks like it was also used for the reshoot. I think where the border is concerned, I'd have gone for a plain black in this case... enough to show seperation, but not too big.

The reshoot is a much better image for single then before, as Sarah said, sharped and better defined.
 
I've had a bit of a nightmare lately - first I was changing cameras so had a wait betwen selling one and buying the other - and then, my computer broke (i cracked the screen) so i've not been on here - and therefore not able to keep up to date with the 52! :( I'm now going to look up what I've missed and get on the case - but just wanted to apologise for the sudden 'drop out'
 
Sounds like you've not been having much fun Sarah. Welcome back... good luck with the catch up :thumbs:
 
Ratfinkz said:
I've had a bit of a nightmare lately - first I was changing cameras so had a wait betwen selling one and buying the other - and then, my computer broke (i cracked the screen) so i've not been on here - and therefore not able to keep up to date with the 52! :( I'm now going to look up what I've missed and get on the case - but just wanted to apologise for the sudden 'drop out'
Click to expand...

:thumbs: Glad to see that you haven't given up on us.
Best of luck with the catch up. You could always jump in with this week's theme and catch up the other weeks as you go along.
 
I like that idea Sarahlea - so here is week 25, Grunge

grunge.jpg
 
Hi Sarah, well done on catching up...

Grunge... it's well framed and definitly grungy... horrible theme it was...

Post... That works, the post stands clear and the zebras add a bit of interest. There's a lot in focus here, that's down the f/18. It's a personal thing, but I'd probably have reduced the ISO to 100 (it looks pretty bright), opened up the aperture to reduce the DOF and keep the shutter speed.

Beginnings... I'm a wee bit biased, I love that book ;)... a good idea for the theme and nicely shot, good use of DOF there... That's a well read copy of the book too ;)

A good idea for Quality, the settings seem a bit peculiar... are you shooting with Auto ISO by any chance ? (you didn't need 1/8000 s)... DOF works well, I can't help thinking that perhaps using the blue wrapped one as the main focal point would bring out the Quality written on the wrapper a bit more.
 
Thanks for the critiques :)

Just to say the Lord of the Rings Book is actually a new copy - but I had a play around with photoshop and added a texture to make it look old - I wanted it to contrast - old / beginning.

Grunge was a nightmare theme - I was so glad when going round Colchester Zoo on the 'road train' to see the shot - and be able to snap it - it was a lucky shot lol!!!

Quality - I see what you mean re: ISO - I need to remember to change ISO - now I have just about got the hang of aperture / shutter speed. I keep forgetting about it *blush* - this goes for post as well.
 
Hi!
Ok, A lot of catchup so I'm just gonna randomly pick!
Post - really like this. Composition is very good, but the white balance seems a tad off
Metal... not sure! Still deciding on it. Bang on theme though!
Stop is very good, I'm not usually a fan of selective colouring but it suits this shot. A contrast boost would really help on that as a B&W. Good shot and idea though :thumbs:
Beginnings and quality I really like, especially beginnings. Really good idea! And perfectly composed :). Love the old feel of the book :thumbs:
 
Stop I think works really well... it has a gentle feel to it, which I think suits the situation reflected here... The angle to bring the sign vertical, whilst might not be generally thought of as the norm (as the horizon is on a real slant) again fits...

Metal... looks like you had a real exposure nightmare with that... I do like it, it's a very intriguing statue and I like it. It looks backlit and I'm guessing you burnt the clouds and dodged the statue, but with the ISO 800 the noise and grain in the statue has really come out. You know what might work really well with this as the colour range is quite limited, a high contrast mono image... the noise will probably help that.
 
Thanks for the advice - I really like the idea of doing metal as black and white - am going to go and play! Yep - the exposure was a nightmare!!!!

Here is week 21 Isolation

isolation.jpg


and week 26 Art

art.jpg



FInally caught up - so I can start my new thread for part two :)
 
Finally done week 19 - Ingrediants - this is all that goes into our dogs breakfast (he's fed on the BARF diet) an when made up is known as 'slop' (btw - this is just small bits of all the stuff - when all ixed up together it makes about two weeks worth - not just one day lol!)

19-ingrediants.jpg
 
Isolation works very well for the theme... That sheep really looks isolated... Just one thing.. The horizon looks very wonky... although the sheep look straight.. I'd use the mast on the hilltop behind the sheep as the guide for getting it straight...

Art, a great idea, and I like that some of the pencils show more wear. I'm not sure... but think there may be a little too much of that silver mesh showing, and perhaps a lower shooting angle to get along the line of the pencils would work, I'm not sure you could get in much closer though.

Metal, that's certainly worked well... I'm not sure, perhaps just a touch less contrast as some of the details in the face and fly are being lost to black. I think there's a lot of potential in that statue.

as for the dogs breakfast... yeuch... it fits the theme though I guess :D... Perhaps more DOF, stop the lens down to maybe f/8 (if you had enough light) to show what the green is.. I can't help but wonder... (is that a good idea :lol:) I'm also not convinced on the framing...
 
Had another play with contrast on Metal - boosted it more in sky, lessened it on face - is this any better?
24-METALbawframe.jpg



Also added a frame to remove the black bit in bottom right hand corner - and the 'unaligned' bricks.
 
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HAve had a play with straightening the horizon on Isolation too - is this better?
isolation-1.jpg
 
Both much improved Sarah... good edits.
 
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