The Photoforum Gallery is at <http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/gallery.html>. Comment's on this week's photos: Pini Vollach -- Dauro Valley - Portugal -- That makes a fascinating abstract. That hill looks to be pretty steep! The branching and combining is wrong for a road, but the fence along it makes it look not like access to agricultural land (and the lack of cover and signs of erosion make it look not like agricultural land). This kind of landscape always seems to look better partly backlit, rather than from the front, and does well with harsh lighting (now tell me it was cloudy and the sun was directly behind you :-)). The whole thing looks jangly to me, something of the same effect I got from the butterfly last week. I don't know what actual aspect of a picture gives me this feeling. Over sharpening? Very slight out-of-focus? Something completely different? Does anybody even share my impression? If so, does anybody think they know what causes it? I sometimes get pictures of my own I react that way to, and I'd love to know what causes it. Per Ofverbeck -- Pulsatillas -- Oooooh. Nice color combos, the dark green and brown, the silky white-to-gray (depending on lighting), and the brighter colors of the flowers. Also all those little hairs make it really obvious what's in focus and what isn't, and contribute to an overall impression of sharpness. Even though the central flower is largely not sharp. Renate Volz -- peace -- When I first brought this up, it was the dragonfly from last week (sorry, I forget whose), but I knew that wasn't right :-). Nice green-black background, and very nice use of the leaf to diffuse the light on the central flower bits. And nice handling of the exposure, with the outside of the diffuser being directly visible. It doesn't look intolerably bright, and certainly shows texture. D.L. Shipman -- Very vivid! And extremely sharp, and the highlight on the beak mostly just helps bring out the texture. And you've got actual *tongue*! Also the great sweeping curve is nice. Fine work! Charles Dias -- Dead Tree -- A fairly nice sky to display the tree against. The lack of detail in the left part of the trunk, and the front of the left branch, bothers me some. Morley Roberts -- Clown -- Nice job. The solemnity combined with the makeup and the rabbit make this picture for me. Elson T. Elizaga -- Butcher's Best -- The letters on the rim at left bother me, largely because I can't figure out what they're part of. I think this would be better with the specular highlights toned down some. But I'm still hungry, so it must be pretty good :-). Gregory david Stempel -- Slideshow --I like the idea, and the man leaning around works well. But the people aren't sharp, and the laptop screen matches the shirt of the guy behind it too precisely. And the people are underexposed, the background is what's right. That could probably be fixed with masking and adjustment, but the sharpness probably can't be fixed. Maybe simply blurring the background (I'd use a gradient mask, I think) would help; possibly the figures would be sharp enough if the background didn't compete. For that matter I'd try Focus Magic; I haven't used it enough yet to have a good feel for where it can and can't help. In that kind of lighting, hence that sort of shutter speed, it's of course hard to get the figures sharp; it's probably motion rather than focus now that I see the shutter speed. I have that trouble in a lot of my own photos, so I'm not unsympathetic (that's why I have all those ideas for ways to try to get away with it). Thanks to everybody participating in the gallery this week! -- David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd-b@xxxxxxxx>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/> RKBA: <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/> Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
