bird silhouettes

Juano

I took this shot early last year and only rediscovered it yesterday. Comments?

JBHotShots

So I am a photography student and we do bi-weekly critiques on our projects. I was having a problem actually standing in front of a class taking the critique as well as participating in giving so I've decided to work more on critiquing in my off time; what a better place than Dgrin.com

From the heart:

We've learned a lot about repetition and this has a lot of it; the poles and the two end birds.

I think it is a nice conversion to b/w and it gives it a gloomy feel to it. I'm not sure what movie it is but I remember catching scene from an movie when I was a kid and the man was in a cage and the crows were eating him alive and this reminds me of the crows and what they might be doing when not partaking in such events :giggle

We just learned about graphic elements (points, lines, shapes ect.) and this has two that really stand out to me. Points, the birds, and vertical lines.

Since it is in landscape format I wish that 3 lowest poles wouldn't have been included at all, it just doesn't add to the picture.

Pretty good picture because I usually can't break a picture down like that in class; this is my 5th week. Overall I like the image.

DonRicklin

The three lowest pole bits are distracting and don't add to the image Crop up from the bottom a tad! .

Good job, Jamie!

Don

JBHotShots

5 plus years of taking pictures but now I am learning photography!

Juano

LouDoggsRuca wrote: »

So I am a photography student and we do bi-weekly critiques on our projects. I was having a problem actually standing in front of a class taking the critique as well as participating in giving so I've decided to work more on critiquing in my off time; what a better place than Dgrin.com

From the heart:

We've learned a lot about repetition and this has a lot of it; the poles and the two end birds.

I think it is a nice conversion to b/w and it gives it a gloomy feel to it. I'm not sure what movie it is but I remember catching scene from an movie when I was a kid and the man was in a cage and the crows were eating him alive and this reminds me of the crows and what they might be doing when not partaking in such events :giggle

We just learned about graphic elements (points, lines, shapes ect.) and this has two that really stand out to me. Points, the birds, and vertical lines.

Since it is in landscape format I wish that 3 lowest poles wouldn't have been included at all, it just doesn't add to the picture.

Pretty good picture because I usually can't break a picture down like that in class; this is my 5th week. Overall I like the image.

Great critique, thanks! I was torn with the poles at the bottom and tried both crops. In the end I decided on this one. I will post a cropped one later to compare..

Dogdots

I can see where people say the lowest posts should be taken out, but they give balance to me when viewing. I'm not seeing posts sticking up out of nothing. The lower ones let me know there is ground below. Be it that they're tipped shows my eye there is ground supporting them.

If you go by the 'rules' I suppose they shouldn't be there, but sometimes rules are made to be broken and it's a photographers choice

Maybe I'm reading too much into it too

JBHotShots

Dogdots wrote: »

I can see where people say the lowest posts should be taken out, but they give balance to me when viewing. I'm not seeing posts sticking up out of nothing. The lower ones let me know there is ground below. Be it that they're tipped shows my eye there is ground supporting them.

If you go by the 'rules' I suppose they shouldn't be there, but sometimes rules are made to be broken and it's a photographers choice

Maybe I'm reading too much into it too

Yes rules are made to be broken and that to me is the beauty of critiques.

Juano

Dogdots wrote: »

I can see where people say the lowest posts should be taken out, but they give balance to me when viewing. I'm not seeing posts sticking up out of nothing. The lower ones let me know there is ground below. Be it that they're tipped shows my eye there is ground supporting them.

If you go by the 'rules' I suppose they shouldn't be there, but sometimes rules are made to be broken and it's a photographers choice

Maybe I'm reading too much into it too

Thanks Mary. I agree with you, for me the bottom poles provide some grounding to the picture. Here is a version for the croppers.

JBHotShots

Juano wrote: »

Thanks Mary. I agree with you, for me the bottom poles provide some grounding to the picture. Here is a version for the croppers.

The repetition outways the "balance" of the tips of the poles IMHO. This is a more fundamentally sound image to me.

Juano

LouDoggsRuca wrote: »

The repetition outways the "balance" of the tips of the poles IMHO. This is a more fundamentally sound image to me.

Thanks Jamie, this is the beauty of this forum, different points of view...

DaddyO

I think the shot has some things going for it. As is or slightly cropped as suggested.
For myself I'd play some more with the processing a bit to possibly zest it up some. Of course thats
a matter of taste just like the cropping suggestion.

Another thing for me out of this piece is the nice details seen with the center bird. Its feet edging over the post. Long legs and the distinct turn of its body and head. Nice silhouette really. This turns me to
thinking of cropping to just that bird. Say a bit to right in frame with some post left in. Not a serious tight crop but leaving some room around the bird and such. Go with maybe vivid
white and black. See what ya got if the image will take that much crop. Further playing with it might
bring the inclusion of another feature like the sun or a bird in flight in balance with the bird on post.
Just thinking out loud