From: "Paul McEvoy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 6:52 PM Subject: First wow
> I'm not sure if I know the rules of the WOW, but please give comments or > suggestions on this album. > > http://public.fotki.com/paulmac/critiqueable/first_wow/ Hi Paul, and (a late) welcome to the list from Scandinavia. Since I was the one suggesting we'd try this institution of WOW (Workshop of the Week) and roughly laid out the "rules" I can tell you that your post actually doesn't amount to a"WOW", but that's allright. It's always nice when people post pictures and ask for comments. (The idea of the WOW is that anyone can ask for help in handling/treating/tweaking/manipulating from other list members. Simply trying to find a solution to a problem with a photo with the help of (the expertise) of the list. Like "How do I do the get rid of this blue cast in...? How would you go about to achieve...? Any suggestion how to crop this one? etc.) Anyway, I browsed your pictures. If I recall correctly, you announced yourself something of a beginnner, right? If I for the sake of a good cause pretend to know what I'm talking about I'd say: Well, for a beginner they are not bad. You seem to have things going for you. You have been attentious and trying to capture certain actions etc.You seem to have picked useful shutter speeds and DOF etc. It's obvious that you possess talent for improving. However, as such I wouldn't say that they are great pictures. They are nice enough for any personal album of documenting stuff, but they could be done a whole lot better. The greatest problem of a scene like this is the amount of various details (people, faces, heads, bikes...etc) which may make it difficult for a viewer to sort out and concentrate on the "important" parts. I find the pictures somewhat "cluttered" by many distracting elements. I guess you as the photographer, have at least a general idea of what each picture is meant to show. A viewer doesn't know and goes by his/her instinct/experience/training in interpreting your picture. You can do a lot to assist/lead the viewer by being very careful at the shooting moment and/or when preparing the picture for viewing. If you are of the "no cropping" school, you will simply have to go out and shoot again and again till you get it right. However, if you - like me - don't mind doing post shooting work and editing your shots, I think there actually are a few good (or better) pictures inside the photos you posted. That is, if you find the right cropping you can pull out some better ones. I'm in a hurry, busy doing other stuff for the moment, why I don't have time to give any examples. However, if you feel like, you could try to do some cropping/editing exercises yourself, trying to see if you somehow can "crystallize" what you think would be the most important ingredients of each picture and exclude (crop out) as much as you can bear with. (Or have you already tried this with the pictures posted, or are they full frames?) Hope my comments don't come across as pretentious. Your pictures are nice enough to watch, but they could get better. Thanks, Lasse
