Musical Tastes - Violin

[Viridiana]

For me, it feels like its missing something, but I just can't put my finger on what. Any suggestions?

[buttershug]

As a violinist I'm always taking pics of my fiddle, but am never satisfied. It's a challenging instrument to photograph for sure.

The f-hole and c-bout are competing for my attention here. Perhaps if you angled a bit more into the body of the instrument and used a smaller DOF? Just a thought.

Hope others with more experience speak up - for both of our sakes.
Cheers

[freezeframe03]

I think a greater depth of field would help to define the piece. I'm wondering how this exact same shot would look if the bow were included lying across the violin at a slightly angled position. Or I guess I should say fiddlestick?

[suprspi]

I'm having trouble appreciating the texture in this shot due to the very narrow DOF. Also distracting to me is the lit curve upper frame right which leads my eye away and out of the corner of the picture.

If I re-shot this I would set my aperture somewhere around f4 or 5.6 and a longer shutter speed to compensate. Zoomed out slightly (but I like the tight close up) so that some more of the pretty velvety material is around it and shot in towards the body of the instrument more to take away the distraction of the c-curve.

Also - it would be neat to have a cool shot of the strings closing together and drawing the eyes along the frame, parallel lines are great and the narrowing of the distance of the nearly parallel strings as they go up the neck would be cool. (perhaps overdone?) Does the neck have ivory dots like a guitar to tell you where chords(?) are? Can you tell I know nothing about them?

I liked freezeframe's suggestion of the bow. The texture of the bow could be really cool.

I'm sorry I got off track of the critique of this image. I think the idea is cool, and you should re-visit it. However, I think the end result this time, though neat, could be improved. (sucks to hear it, I had to about my favourite image lately. )

[Viridiana]

Thankyou all so much for the feedback.
These photos were taken with a relatively ancient Kodak point and shoot, so I had no way of adjusting the DOF etc.
I have a zoom lense which I'm using, but as this point and shoot has no way of attaching them I'm forced to hold them in front of the camera, posing a few problems with focusing (auto-focus - no way to manually focus either.)
I'll definately be revisiting the idea after my 21st when I get my dSLR.

The camera has been good to me in other photos though, but it is hugely a matter of chance rather than being able to control the things I want to be able to change.



This turned out better with the old point and shoot, due to some unintentional slipping with the lense I was holding in front of the camera.

Thanks again for all the feedback, I really appreciate it.

[suprspi]

Now that's the one I was talking about! I understand your issues, and I know it's much easier when you have a DSLR with more control. I can't wait to see a re-visit to this subject after the 21st - feel free to PM me in case I miss it!

[LeeR]

When I look at this image I want to do two things: raise the camera a bit and turn it slightly clockwise. Why? Raising it would do two things, it would help increase DOF a bit and make more use of the sweeping 'C' linen created by the gold trim. Turning it clockwise would mean the top of the 'C' would be moved farther to the left causing the line to sweep down through the middle of the image. Remember that in shots like this your primary tools are lines and shapes. You have some great shapes here, though the shape of the 'f' hole is diluted by the fact that so much of it is out of focus. Keep working on it, you are very close to something well worth the effort.