In black and white the viewers attention is highlighted on things like focus, lighting and contrasts as there is no colour to smooth over a picture and hide or mask the tiny flaws. What is apparent as can been seen in the entries to this months competition is a good choice of subject is essential. Something with clean lines or a fair amount of texture while not becoming cluttered or confusing often carries much more impact and makes for a visually pleasing photo. The majority of the entries are technically well planned and processed photos but some really stand out due to their subject matter being much more suitable than others.
Everyone who has entered should be happy with their efforts and I have learned a lot from not just photographing my entry but from also studying everyone elses during the writing of this critique.
As usual what follows is just my opinions on each shot and what I feel could be changed to make the picture better for me. There is no right or wrong and please dont take anything personal if you disagree with any of my comments. All the critique below was written before the judging stage had been completed so again I have no idea which pictures belong to which members which I also feel offers you a fairer and more open opinion.
So without further ado here is my critique on the pictures.
Picture 1- This is a classic British view that is world famous, it has been captured with the lines from the bridge leading your eyes into the shot and onto the Houses of Parliament. The sky is big in terms of scale and impact. The black and white conversion has been handled well, I would have liked to see a little more detail under the bridge and it appears as though one or two of the highlights are just a tad blown out. Those two details aside overall its a strong competent entry which I like evry much.
Picture 2 The problem with this shot for me is that it does not contain a real three dimensional feel and it leaves me looking at a flat picture. The subject is almost 90 degrees to the camera and totally vertical with nothing to lead the eyes into frame, the contrasts are very stark and the picture has got the highlights in the water blown by being over exposed. On a subject such as flowing water this is often a common fault that is very hard to correct, either you get the highlights exposed correctly and the shadow detail ends up being lost or you get the shadow detail and blown highlights. If you have Photoshop or PSP there are couple of tutorials that show how to combine two shots together to get one correctly exposed image, your other option is filters but for this scene they wouldnt have helped. Its a bold attempt at a difficult scene to get to work well in B&W.
Picture 3 This is a subject that I considered shooting for this round, here it is shot well but I feel the contrast and levels could have been tweaked slightly to add more impact. Also for me I would have had the foreground in focus and the detail fading out towards the back of the frame, as it is presented here the foreground is out of focus and holds no detail to draw the eyes into the shot. As your subject is the paper article I would have tried to source something relevant to the theme to give it that extra twist, something on racists or a court case maybe to emphasise the black and white subject and add that extra twist?
Picture 4 Black person, white top, black pants..certainly fits the theme
What you have here is essentially an action portrait and with portraits the aim is to focus the viewer on the subject. In this shot the background is clearly visible and somewhat distracting, especially the white clothing seen on the right. If possible this shot captured with a narrower depth of field to blur the background and remove the distractions would have been a far more powerful image. Its not a weak image as it is I just feel it could have been improved.
Picture 5 My entry, this shot is actually a full colour capture with minimum editing. Its a result of setting up the glass of water on four pieces of black and white card and then adjusting the lighting until I got the contrast and reflections to look ok. It took a lot of experimentation and over 70 shots until I got the shot that I was happy with. I did attempt some cleaned and level adjusted versions but they just ended up looking like a computer created picture rather than the photograph I was aiming for. Looking back at it now I instantly see the line in the middle between the white and black card is not absolutely vertical
there is always room for improvement
Picture 6 The thing that is most noticeable is the amount of noise visible in the sky to the right of the lighthouse. This could have easily been removed/reduced by running the photo through one of the free noise reduction packages such as Noiseware or Neatimage, currently I find it quite distracting. I also feel that the picture would have benefited from having the verticals strengthened to stop the building on the right looking as though its about to fall over into the picture and finally by cloning out the cables running across the frame to clean up some of the clutter in the lower section. It is good to see that you have not framed the lighthouse in the centre of the picture and the one wispy cloud adds nicely to the balance of the picture.
Picture 7 I expected some hay bail photos to appear for this round
Here the focus is on the hay bail in the upper third of the frame and you have correctly used the lines in the field to lead our eyes into the picture, unfortunately the chosen depth of field is not large enough to have the foreground in focus and that leaves much of the bottom third of the picture with no real content. I think you have framed the subject correctly and it would have been a much more powerful and appealing shot if the depth of field used had been larger.
Picture 8 This is great shot that abides by the rule of thirds perfectly, you have good foreground interest leading into the middle ground and then finally the hills and the sky in the far distance. The shot is further complimented by the diagonal lines of the fields running in opposite directions across the photo. The whole picture is more grey than black and white though, and I feel this shot could be improved by a slight increase in contrast, a small tweak to the levels and then finally being run through a noise reduction package to clean up the sky. The combination of those steps would have brought out the best in this photo and really brought it to life.
Picture 9 The basic rules have been followed here, using the path to lead you into the picture, having subject matter with texture but there is not enough contrast between the wall, the ferns behind it and the trees in the background which makes the picture over cluttered and the viewer struggle to see the whole scene. Instead of making the picture look 3 dimensional it appears very flat and busy. I am sure when viewed in colour the scene looks completely different due to the colours separating the sections and thus I would presume, makes it more pleasing. I think the subject rather than the processing is the weakest part of this shot
1/2
