CHAT THREAD - Weekend Comp 22nd-24th October 2010 - SILHOUETTES

[jinky]

Great images from the joint winners which were my two front runners too.
Cheers for the comments and votes and yes Semaj - seems I boobed.I thought my first lacked strong enough silhouettes as half the figures had disappeared into the horizon before I spotted the opportunity. I felt my entry hadbolder more prominent figures and had to work harder to keep te surrounding autumna coloours - ah well

Reviews } Semaj - lovely peaceful scene which did not get to the top of my list only because I was lookin for bolder silhouettes. As Bodsao said you could improve comp little but nice shot.

Higlandscenic`s - origimal take but afraid it did not do it for me.Good thinking outsie the box though.

Some nice mages this week and all who got them through when the site was so slow did well.

[michaelb104]

Congrats Muckboy, I am abroad at the moment and have very, very limited access to the interweb. Could you do all the necessary for this weekends comp - thanks Mike.

Thank you all who voted for my shot, I really was not expecting to win.

Signing off now as I cannot get to grips with this French keyboard.

[silversnapper1]

Congratulations to the two winners. Two great shots and were my top two. Another week of really strong entries, so well done everyone.

Thank you for the feedback bodsao and oggalily. Gratefully received. I realised that the silhouettes were not really bold enough but liked the shot so much that I put it in anyway. In hindsight, I too should probably stuck with my original image. The moon was actually there in the original shot bodsao, just blown out as you would expect from a shot with that sort of exposure time. I had actually taken a number of shots and cloned out the original moon and replaced it with one with a little detail.

Above and below.

oggalily - liked this image, a very striking silhouette and I was not aware of the music connection as music is not really my thing.
michaelb104 - this was in my top two. Loved the composition and the bokeh.

Steve.

[Mr C]

This is my second comp entry and I've had the time to read the chat thread too this week which made me realise I should comment on the above and below images
Oopsy, sorry, didn't do that last week

So here goes, my first comments.....

Above: Tinkerbell: For me it fits the brief without question and I can appreciate the 'set-up' effort that went into it, lacking in contrast I feel though, maybe the silhouette could have been darkened to black whilst keeping the scroll paper texture as is.

Below: Cat on worktop: I like the subject here, would have liked to see the same cat (is it Nero ? ) in the same pose in front of a less cluttered background. The back ground was a little distracting. That said, it was a great idea and it certainly fit the brief too.

Both the above and below images fitted the brief well and it has reminded me to read the brief a little more closely next time

Loved the winning images, very worthy firsts.

Oh, and for my first commenting, how did I do? hope I wasn't too improper or harsh or stupid or something

Oh, and thanks for the comments on mine and for the two votes too, very pleased with that I look forward to trying again next week.

[Muckyboy]

Morning all!

Firstly a massive thank-you to those who voted for me this week. As a newcomer to the Forum I feel really chuffed to get your support for my efforts!

It has really given me great encouragement especially as I've just bought myself an SLR to try to get a bit more creative!

As far as the next comp goes I've e-mailed michaelb104 but haven't heard anything back so I'm looking for some direction from the "old hands" Should I post up a subject now or leave it until this evening to see if Michael gets in touch?

Thanks again guys! I'm really chuffed! Good luck to all this weekend!

[highlandscenics]

Congrats to the winners...and thank to Bodsao and others fr the critique.

As far as the set was concerned, it was very simple, a sheet of a4 paper placed in front of a fairy figureen, all lit by the sun through my window.

I withdrew my "Cartoon City" entry, because I thought it was too simple.....shoulda kept it!

[Cutter]

Congrats winners , I dithererd with my vote this week because i loved the image of the golfer and the grass seed but finaly went for the grass seed . Sorry muckyboy, your image was right up my street with me being a golfer and was thinking on those lines myself, but looking closely i notice a lot of noise evident in your photo and it could have done with a tighter crop for a better composition so i went for the grass seed.
Hey thanks for my only vote by the way

Above : Can I dig now dad, loved this picture and wanted to vote for it but the darkness of all of the picture lost it for me, but was a great contender.

Below oggallily high tide, mid-afternoon, as usual a well excecuted photograph, Have I seen this model in a previouse comp? Great Bokeh and very crisp, did you burn the edges they looked a bit red ?

These are my views only I hope I dont offend anyone.

[Muckyboy]

Thanks for the feedback Cutter. I'm really trying to use the critiques as a means to learn so i'll try to find out how to dial out the noise for future reference. I did crop the image quite a bit but decided to keep the houses and the grass to the left but I admit I left the little bit of wispy cloud to the right of Robert's hands as I didn't want to crop too close on the right so I would agree with Cutter there too!

In reailty the photo was taken during a round and I was being opportunist rather than staging the shot so I only had three goes at this one as each of my playing partners teed off. It proved to be a very successful round getting me a winning entry for this comp and a second place in the golf comp!!! Not sure if i'm going to be able to juggle both hobbies successfully!

My up and downs:-

Untitled cat
Nice idea though you know what they say in showbiz - never work with children or animals! Like the idea of a cat with a ball of wool but might have benefitted from being set-up on a window sill giving a cleaner silhouette!

Can I dig now Dad?
Amazing atmosphere in this one and I really liked it. The only thing for me was that I could scarcely make out the spade. More definition of the figure's activities and this could well have been my first choice.

[Cutter]

Originally Posted by Muckyboy

Thanks for the feedback Cutter. I'm really trying to use the critiques as a means to learn so i'll try to find out how to dial out the noise for future reference. I did crop the image quite a bit but decided to keep the houses and the grass to the left but I admit I left the little bit of wispy cloud to the right of Robert's hands as I didn't want to crop too close on the right so I would agree with Cutter there too!

In reailty the photo was taken during a round and I was being opportunist rather than staging the shot so I only had three goes at this one as each of my playing partners teed off. It proved to be a very successful round getting me a winning entry for this comp and a second place in the golf comp!!! Not sure if i'm going to be able to juggle both hobbies successfully!

.

Re: the photo, in my opinion your subject ie: the golfer was the main subject , which was spot on, so making the houses on the left in shot, lead your eyes away and distracted you. As for the noise there are plenty of noise reduction filters out there that would have removed it in seconds. As in most cases with low light or high ISO photography you will create noise, so look for it and try to tone it down.
I hope you find my coments helpful

[Muckyboy]

Absolutely! and thanks for the helpful advice too!