Hi all, on the one hand, the recent trend of smaller galleries is a bit sad. On the other, it makes it much easier to write up review comments of some length. Happily, I have managed to ignore work long enough to start _and_ finish one this week. So: http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/gallery.html Dave Van Verst - Teton Valley Ranch 1952 My first though was that the colours were rather faded. But, the details you provided quickly made me realize that would be an unfair complaint. (Score one for digital -- 0's and 1's don't fade. They just get trapped in obsolete media and file formats!) The diagonal of green in the foreground works here to overcome what, without it, would be a sense of stasis. Achal Pashine - Fruit Seller, Western India I very much like the vivid and contrasting colours of the fruit and the cart. The cart is nicely placed as well. The plainness of the background works here, too. I think the shot would have likely been weaker had there been customers present. For me, at least, it is the sparseness that makes this one work. Indeed, I think I would have liked it more had the vendor himself not been in the frame. (Though his scarf nicely complements the colours of the fruit.) Also, the stool's being completely in the frame bothers me a little bit. But, overall, I like this very much. Dan Mitchell - Secret Courtyard I like this one, too. There is a good balance of brightness with only a bit of the foreground being very dark. I've quite a number of similar shots of courtyards in Italy spoiled by too much darkness in the foreground, so hats off. My main quibble would be that an angle which did not place the ornament of the gate almost in the centre of the archway might have worked better. But, from the walls of the hallway, it looks like you had a fairly limited range of options. Jeff Spirer - M The bright triangle on the bottom a third of the way from the left edge bothers me. I've tried cropping this a few different ways on screen. Removing only the triangle leaves a weird black spike just under the traffic light, and that would bother me too much, too. Removing the triangle and the structure under the traffic does leave the traffic light a bit too close to the bottom border, but at least in my opinion, it makes the composition stronger even so. So too would cropping enough off the top to get rid of the sliver of sky above the building on the left. (Apparently I cannot resist complaining about the cropping on most of this week's images, but there you have it.) David Small - Under the El Cue the smoky piano jazz and a tired looking man in fedora and trench- coat and you've got the basis of a good neo-noir scene. I like the mood a lot. The angle of the light and the misty quality (under the El track and of the building in the distance) both make this nice to look at. A few things bother me, though. There are some unhappy digital artifacts (at least when viewed on my set-up): much of the El track (upper left and along the diagonal of light) and along the sidewalk in the lower left is afflicted with some ugly patchiness. (If this was originally done on film, I suspect I would like a print much more.) Also, I wish the truck (?) at extreme left were not there. I think you would have a better image if you cropped that out. Maris V. Lidaka, Sr. - Ferris Wheel, Navy Pier, Chicago I like the intricate lace-work of the structure. At first I felt as though the relatively empty space near the middle (the axle of the wheel, perhaps?) was too close to the centre of the frame. But looking longer, I have come to think that the strong horizontal lines above the strip of green and the large cross below serve to unbalance the frame enough to overcome what would have otherwise felt static. Bob Talbot - Wild Over cats and cat photos, wild I am not. That said, this does capture a moment quite well. Did you use a portrait lens, diffusion filter, or the old vaseline trick? It looks as though you did, and I cannot recall every having seen such "portrait" techniques applied to a cat before. I do like the background, but think it a shame that both it, and the area just above the cat's eyes are marred by a moire pattern. Emily L. Ferguson - working the grinder Since the grinder is the focus of the photo, it seems too bad that it is right up against the lower edge. I also think that the image would be improved if the white background were a touch less bright. (Might be my set-up, but it is an overpowering pure white.) The strap across the red cap is also a distraction, but I'm guessing the wind wasn't cooperative. Overall, this one does little for me. I liked your photo of the spinnaker a few weeks back much more. (Indeed, I cannot now resist shamelessly recycling a line from yet another half-done and never posted review. I hypothesized that you must have been very "prowed" of that one!) Fletcher Jernigan - This has a very nice dreaminess to it. I really like the translucency and texture at the upper right. Since you've already sharpened, evidently you've no philosophical qualms about the digital darkroom. Perhaps you might try "burning" some areas to get more portions of the brightness range represented. As it is now, there are some very bright portions, some rather darker ones, and little in between. I think filling in the tonal middle might improve things. Anyway, such were my thoughts about this week's gallery. Thanks to the contributors and the staff for giving me the opportunity to gripe about cropping and the like. Best to all, Brian van den Broek
