Kid carving ice: is the critique on my own photo ok?

[geo909]

Hi all,

I recently took this photo of a kid carving some ice at a winter festival. I did some PP in the gimp, mainly crop so that the ice wall and the subject fill the frame, a little adjusting of the tones, and a slight touch of desaturation of all the ice blocks except the yellow one.

Now, I'm very new to photography. In fact I've never used a DSLR until 2-3 weeks ago, but I'm very excited about it and I read/practice a lot. As a newbie, I am kind of proud for this photo, but so I was in the past of photos that I now see that are full of obvious flaws.

So, I made a critique of my own photo! I would kindly ask the people here to critique my critique! Did I get things right? What would you add/remove in my critique?




Pros:

• The blue coat and yellow piece of ice make a nice contrast with the neutral ice-wall.
• The placement of the kid is good, on the left third of the image.. The composition is well balanced.

Cons:

• Too much contrast. There is some clipping of the sunlight through the ice (couldn't do much though, since the sun was hitting the ice-wall from behind) and the trousers appear completely black.
• Composition-wise, it would be a more interesting photo if some of the face showed and if we could also see what the kid is actually doing. I know he is carving the ice, but he could as well be taking a piss

PS. Don't be afraid to disappoint me, my priority is learning.

Camera model    : Canon EOS REBEL T2i
Exposure time   : 1/640 s
Aperture        : F5.6
Flash           : No, compulsory
Focal length    : 55.0 mm
ISO speed       : 100
Exposure mode   : Aperture priority

[ccting]

WOW.. nice.

About blue yellow stuff.. I am not sure whether the yellow pops out.. but in the context of ace and background, yellow really pops..

i like the clear texture background showing where he is LOL< may be i will increase the f-number to f/8
I like the highlight on the clothes..

+.33 exposure +29 Brightness..may come out with even better result..

;D you take better photo than me !

[geo909]

Originally Posted by ccting

About blue yellow stuff.. I am not sure whether the yellow pops out..

You're right.. I now realize the yellow is not particularly intense and kind of shadowy..

i like the clear texture background showing where he is LOL< may be i will increase the f-number to f/8

That's another good point. Probably a smaller aperture would give some crystal-clear detail on the ice.

Thanks for your feedback, much appreciated.

[ccting]

Hmmm, usually i will ensure the highlight that almost blow out without loosing the detail. The objective is to gain greater dynamic range.. this is explained by Adobe experts...but i forget hisname..

Yes, that is my intention to give some crystal-clear detail on the ice, as I think the main subject is a complex entity - A man is looking @ ice texture. Therefore, the ice should crystal clear to tell the story. This has been explained by Michael Freeman in his book The photographer's eye.

Crystal-clear texture can be archieved by f/8 for most of the lenses, this can be read from MTF chart.

I am just a noob of photography and most of the time, i misunderstood things,, LOL.. Hopefully Zona comes in..and comment. I think he is the expert in this field.

[graciousness]

Your self critique is good. Keep at it!

You are right about the composition. The first thing that came to my head when I saw the photo is - "what is he doing!!?" He does look like he is doing something suspicious.

A better angle (I think) is if you were actually against the ice wall and yes, taking his photo from the side so you can see what he is doing. Also, the wall would lead the eye to him and what he is doing.

There is something dynamic with the blue and the yellow, plus the texture of the ice wall. This can be improved in post processing by playing around with curves and levels.

Hope this helps - am interested to see more photos from you here in the future!

Cheers,

Grace

[Vincent_G]

Maybe it's just my settings, but on my screen I can see blue on the yellow/green ice block bronze to the left and green underneath and to the far right. What I particularly like is the subtleness of the word Jeremy. almost missed it.

[geo909]

Originally Posted by graciousness

Your self critique is good. Keep at it!

You are right about the composition. The first thing that came to my head when I saw the photo is - "what is he doing!!?" He does look like he is doing something suspicious.

A better angle (I think) is if you were actually against the ice wall and yes, taking his photo from the side so you can see what he is doing. Also, the wall would lead the eye to him and what he is doing.

There is something dynamic with the blue and the yellow, plus the texture of the ice wall. This can be improved in post processing by playing around with curves and levels.
Grace

That makes a lot of sense! Thanks so much for the valuable critique!

Maybe it's just my settings, but on my screen I can see blue on the yellow/green ice block bronze to the left and green underneath and to the far right. What I particularly like is the subtleness of the word Jeremy. almost missed it

Ah.. Shoot.. I have to say that my monitor is not properly calibrated.. There are those colors there, but I thought they were too subtle. I even desaturated the wall a tiny bit to make them not pop out (not the yellow block though). Maybe I should buy that calibrator soon. And yes, I actually didn't pay attention to the name when I was taking the picture, but later thought it was nice, too.. Thanks a lot!