> http://people.rit.edu/andpph/gallery.html include: In contrast to the other reviewers who seem to attach so much personal meaning to the subjects of these images, I'm just going to comment on a more technical level. Jake by Bob Sull - The chair on the right and the red blob draw my attention away from the boy as does the candle barely intruding into his chin. Were it the only candle then it would have been ok but being one of five, it draws my attention to the line of candles and away from his face. The soft focus looks more like low light failure of auto-focus and perhaps a bit of camera shake than any planned softness and the photographer. That's not to say that you didn't plan it all but to me it looks like mistakes. Listen! by John Palcewski - First off I dislike the title. I very much prefer to look at an image and interpret what it means for myself. When you put a title like 'Listen!" on it, it makes the photo look like a motivational poster you see in an office building. The image has a cyan caste to it and lacks contrast. Also, this appears to be another failing of auto-focus. The ugly wires that should have been cropped from the image in the upper left corner are clearer than the human figures which, to me, should be the subject of the image. Compositionally I prefer the image flipped horizontally. When its flipped, the angle of the female (I presume) leads my eye to the right where I am stopped cold by the man staring back at me. Whereas the way you presented it, I begin with the man and then slide down the back of the woman and drift off into the empty white space and out of the image. REMEMBERING by Howard Leigh - I wonder if the all-caps title is on purpose but I suspect not. This image is tonally too flat for my liking. I was able to find a true black pixel (0,0,0) but no true white (255, 255,255) and the histogram is very heavy on the black end. I think some dodging and a curves layer or two would help a lot. As for composition, when I look at this the heads of the people appear crammed in the top third of the image. When I first look at the image my eye is drawn to the crest on the men's jackets and from there I move to the strong graphic intersection of pavement markings and legs. I understand you cropped to remove your finger and other things from the image but perhaps cloning would have worked better than cropping if it gave you more space above the people's heads. Quaker Meettinghouse window by Emily L. Ferguson - Here is a truly curious title. Only two of the three words are capitalized and is "meettinghouse" even a word? Perhaps its an old Quaker term. Like the previous images, this one lacks contrast and for my tastes, saturation. It does have some powerful graphic elements though that leave me feeling like I could fall down at any moment. Its an interesting effect but it makes me want to look away whereas if the image were cropped closer to square, I would find the lines more interesting and less unnerving. Double Falls by Bob McCulloch - Well this one just needs a bit more contrast and some dodging and maybe saturation to bring it to life however there are two things that bother me. The upper level of the stream bed is dead center in the image which is boring. The two 'falls' occupy a very small portion of this image. The shutter speed chosen has not made the water appear soft and flowing nor completely stopped. Its almost stopped but not quite. It looks like you didn't really have a vision for how you wanted the water to appear. Crowd scene at Arts Festival by Michael Hughes. The grain and blur of this image makes me think it is a tiny crop of a much larger image. It also looks like it may have been taken by accidentally hitting the camera trigger. There is nothing here that really interests me other than the woman's ring finger being apparently longer than all her other fingers. This draws my eye far more than her face which bleeds out of the image. Well, her finger and the blown out purse strap and the tan coat in the lower right corner. I don't even really get the feeling of a crowd. That's it. Greg
