Good evening Lenspiration!
First off, I just want to thank both Caitlin and Abby for submitting their photos! You both submitted 5 DNG files, which I love! (DNGs are awesome…) Unfortunately I wasn’t able to use any of the photos.
Please forgive me if I sound a bit harsh with some of the critique, but these are some things that we photographers need to think about, and I promise I’m not trying to be!
Both of you choose to mainly photograph the same subject, clocks, with differing results. Caitlin uploaded her photos to the forum already, so I’ll just post small previews of Abby’s submissions here.
Caitlin:
You choose to put the subject off-center, and while usually that helps with positioning the verse, the “bezel” of the clock then cuts right down the center. You’d think this would only be an issue if the clock was white, but in actuality, I’m already having to compensate for the very white calendar as well as the clock’s face, so having a black clock creates an undesirable high contrast situation… (dark text doesn’t show up well on the bezel, while white text won’t show up well on the clock face/calendar)
This wouldn’t be a problem if I was doing a project in which I could off center the text as well, but I’m not. I could do something about the high contrast such as lowering the exposure to make white text to show up, but that doesn’t look great in all situations, and as a photographers, we should be trying to think of these things ahead of time so that the client doesn’t have to.
There were some problems with your choice of subject as well, at least for me. One strike against the submissions was your choice to put a calendar in the background. Honestly, this might be just me, and it probably is, but I just never like seeing an open calendar in a shot when it isn’t the main subject. I find the calendar makes the photo feel cluttered and the compisition is just not as clean as it should be.
Try and decide why you want to include each subject in your compisition and figure out whether they are adding or taking away from your subject. In the wild, the most you can usually do is look for a new angle or move closer/farther away, but in a “studio” environment, you have the ability to include or remove the object, so it is worth the time to think about your compisition.
You also submitted some pictures of leaves, and while the photos weren’t inherently bad, I didn’t feel that they quite fit the mood or feel of the verse.
Abby:
You choose to only photography clocks, and while I was glad to see you once again looking at the subject you choose from various angles, there were some problems with the shots that kept me from being able to use them.
Just to start off, you submitted three photos looking straight ahead at the clock face, and another two looking at the clock at different angles, and there were different problems with both angles. These problems appeared again with your later shots that I’ll discuss below. That left me with the three straight-on shots.
The first one was of a close up fo the bottom half of the clock face. It was only slightly off centered, which would allow the verse to easily fit on without the bezel crossing over, but it would have not looked too great in the finished VersePic because you’d only be seeing the white of the clock face as your phone’s wallpaper… Additionally, there is a bright overexposed area to the left from a light in the background that really distracts the eye. If you had just slightly moved the clock to the left to block that out before shooting, it would’ve helped a lot to get rid of that distraction from the subject.
The second was taken in bright sunlight so there were very dark shadows everywhere. As this is a DNG file, I could have raised the shadows, but at the risk of plenty of noise in those areas…
The third and final shot was taken indoors in relatively even lighting, so there weren’t any shadow problems here, and you included some nice color in the background with some bouquets. The issue was there’s only color on the left of the shot, with nothing but grey wall on the right. Since your subject was centered, the photo felt off balance. As you used a small aperture here again, I would have tried cloning one of the bouquets over to the right side of the image to balance it out, and it would have worked, except for an even bigger probem: I’m not sure if it is visible here, but your photo was covered in LOTS of green, red, and blue noise. Way too much, unfortunately, for this photo to be used…
In the end, I went to another one of my sources to find the shot for the VP, and you can see the finished VersePic below!
I decided to go with this image for a couple reasons. The first one was that I just love those colors!!! That blue is awesome. 😂 The second and probably more interesting reason was that it felt like it fit the verse. The subject of the lone man in the foreground almost felt like he was waiting for something to happen, which makes me think of Paul waiting to be sent for, and at the same time, he also feels like he is pondering something, just like Festus was pondering his conviction to be saved in the verse. This quality in the photo was just too good to pass up… Thirdly, I loved where the horizon is here, as it perfectly sets up an area to place the reference, and fourthly, it felt clean. There was so much open space, and while that provides plently of room for a design, it also draws me into the scene in a way that is hard to describe.
I know, that’s a lot! Hopefully though, you’ll take the time to go through this critique and start applying what you learn to your photography! I know better than anybody I’m not the best photographer around, so while you should take my thoughts with a grain of salt, don’t let that stop you from applying yourself to growing through critique!
Ben
VersePic Director
http://www.sharpeningcharacter.com