Well, I have some time, and this week's gallery is really excellent. Here are my honest and hopefully helpful comments: Marilyn Dalrymple Shadow in a frame Interesting abstract that would be difficult to tell how it was done without the data provided. Might be nicer with an increase in contrast. Overall nice mood and colour. Russ Baker Deb I love seeing sexy ladies almost my own age. She's got lovely eyes too and seems quite relaxed. I think this might be more difficult with a stranger this age. Jim Davis Great Reed Warbler I had submitted another photo of this bird, with a comment that I was hoping to get him with his beak open without a foreground reed slightly obscuring his tail a bit. Next day I did just that, and resubmitted. Thanks to the staff for the extra effort to swap images. Bob Talbot Spiderettes A lovely macro shot with an abstract feel and wonderful colour. Nicely composed with good balance all around. Amazing what digital can do these days to provide a realistic rendition. Oh ya, Bob's too cheap to buy a DSLR heh heh. Nice shot Bob. Betcha didn't shoot it just this past week :-) Margaret Lucas early morning lobstering Ok, nice capture all around. Seems you used a small aperture and got a large DOF. I'd like to have seen this with a shallow DOF on the boat, but that's just the only thing that strikes me that might have made this better. Nice early morning feel to it. Well framed and well taken. Congratulations, and welcome to the gallery. Please submit more of your work in the future. Emily L. Ferguson approaching the windward mark Well. You're right about browner for sepia, but I think I like sailboats in colour myself. Overall it feels a bit crowded and confused with so many boats. I think likely it'd look much better in a large print. Rich Mason I just opened this for a second look and noticed the open door in the exact centre silo. Nice shot! This is a rule breaking composition for sure, but it makes good use of colour and exact framing to create quite a nice visual impact. Jim Snarski Out of Kenya I think this is another image that would look good in a large print. On my screen it just seems a bit dull and static. I'll bet it's tough getting something really special in a place like this. I thought the white areas were water or sand but remembered you said it was soda. The shadows on the mountains look quite blue. I wonder how a skylight might have helped or a bit of manipulation to give the shot a warmer look. Trevor Cunningham Red 7 Wow, we got lots of interesting shots with water in them this week. This is another with a really abstract look, and unreal colours. Well framed with some interesting underwater lines, but it seems a bit fuzzy, or misty. Course being an abstract it doesn't really hurt the image, but I was just wondering if this is becaue of steam rising, a fingerprint on the lens, or what? Don Roberts Hierve el Agua I think you got an interesting subject but it kind of looks like you just pointed and shot. The framing and background just looks a bit tightly cropped and not quite interesting enough. Perhaps a wider angled lens, or tighter crop might have worked. Paresh Pandit the pole Well, I'm certainly wondering what happened to the box's cover, and why there are no wires on the insulators, the pole does seem in use. Overall, I'm going to give this one the thumbs down. It just doesn't do anything for me. It's cluttered and super contrasty. There must be more interesting stuff around over there. WRGill Wildflowers and Driftwood First off, this image appears too much to the magenta side. Secondly, the weed sticking up on the right side of bottom centre really doesn't help the image get off the ground. The viewpoint is too much perhaps from a regular human's perspective. It appears tightly cropped. The left half of the image, with some colour balancing might have made a much more interesting image. Oh, ya, the driftwood itself appears out of focus. You should try different shooting heights, and use shallow DOF to make things stand out more. If you have Photoshop, try sampling areas which you think might be close to grey and see how the colours look. Driftwood should be grey/brown toned. One more things, you should have lowered the contrast a bit. I hope I haven't discouraged anyone, and perhaps helped someone do better. Let's keep the quantity coming, and the quality up! -- Jim Davis Nature Photography http://jimdavis.oberro.com Replies in plain text only please!
