Critiques please-something just feels...off

October 25th, 2014
I posted this one today and I don't know why but it feels wrong. I'm not sure if I want the neck more in focus or maybe it's the way the neck isn't straight up and down? I like where the focus is though.
Does anyone else feel it? Or am I crazy?

October 25th, 2014
I like it! You have a white background, so it makes sense that it's on the lighter side---to me, anyway! Here's one I took...neck is not centered either...dark background. I'm not a lighting guru, so I probably wouldn't be able to help you there. The only thing I WOULD suggest is to try to clean up some of the dust under the strings there...I had that on some of mine too and never thought about it until after I saw the pics. ughh. Other than that, I love the POV. :)

October 25th, 2014
@cindyloo yea I should get him to clean it up a bit before I get snap happy. I'm a little scared to touch them too much ha ha. Don't want to hurt his babies.
October 25th, 2014
@angelamk I think your focus is spot on - great pov with super depth!
October 25th, 2014
Very cool pov and focus. I might try cropping some of the white background at the top of the picture off, down to the top of the guitar as it may give a nice feeling of infinity.
October 25th, 2014
@lynnilou thank you! That's what my boyfriend said too.
@salza maybe that's what it is. I love some good dead space but I don't think it works here.

Thanks yall!
October 25th, 2014
@angelamk It's more natural for backgrounds to be darker than the foreground. Dark colours recede, light colours come forward, and that's having a disturbing effect here. The neck of the guitar looks curved or kinked on the right hand side, and that looks a bit odd, too
October 25th, 2014
@angelamk I like your composition and focus. I agree that I think a dark background would work better. How it is my eye is drawn immediately to the background rather than to the foreground. Overall, I like the image.
October 25th, 2014
I think what I would be doing was cropping the bottom of the image remove the bottom edge of the guitar which is taking my eye... Add a little extra saturation/contrast fading in and out from the bottom focussing on the pickup. Then at the top I would add a graduated additional brightness to allow the end of the neck to fade away completely into the background, creating the impression of disappearing into infinity.
October 25th, 2014
Is it a pink guitar? Or red? Maybe if the color was more saturated. The white is a little over powering. I don't mind that it's not completely straight, but you could straighten it, if that bothers you.
October 25th, 2014
At least you had a go. I think it is the pale neck against white/light background. Now another question-play it don't photo it-what sort of guitar is it
October 25th, 2014
So, I saw this on your feed before I say it in the criticism section. I liked the image. But, I also like to criticize.
Here are some comments:

Firstly, composition. I like the focus of the composition on the bridge going into the frets. The dirt doesn't both me, but still would make a smoother surface if clean. But, the composition includes only part of the bottom of the guitar, which is ok because the strings, the lines, and the fade to back ground DOF is what you are going for I think? That makes perfectly clear sense. But, there is a lot of the bottom of the guitar, but not enough to show us what we are seeing. Instead it is just a traingle of red at the bottom, and then the pinkish hue reflection. It feels cramped at the bottom. Conversely, there is a lot of dead space up at the top. Our eyes are pulled by the dark red at the bottom, then we follow the lines up into nothingness.... my eyes want to stay there unfortunately and look for subject. So, I think that a composition where the top was cropped so less white (or like somebody suggested, fade out the top more by graduated filter), and more or less of the base of the scene would work a little better.

Color - the guitar does look a little pink. Not sure why.

Distractions : Left and right side of the scene. Left - small white blurb just left of the bridge. That my eye keeps coming back to. And to the right a red line right along the edge. Both of these distractors (too light on the left, too dark on the right) pull my eye away once again from the color of the guitar. Should be cloned or cut. Even removing those two elements with NO other changes really brings more focus into your subject. Just cover them on the screen with your fingers, you'll see what I mean.

This image looks like you did crop right? I wonder about a recrop. Something that cuts out the distractors left and right, or clone those out. But also, a crop along the 1/3 format? 1/3 foreground guitar --- red (more of it), 2/3 mid ground (pink to white), and then 1/3 or less of that white above. You might even make the base (red) a little more than 1/3, and that way you can slightly shorten the top to less than 1/3. You have a fading horizon point of view anyway. So, if the base is larger, the middle is smaller, and the top smaller still, you will create forced perspective and a stronger composition.

Essentially, by contrast, that's what @cindyloo did on her shot. She has a dark background, but it's very minimal. The base is much wider than the mid ground, and the neck and pegs BARELY make it into the scene. So, our eyes are forced out of the scene into the background. I think that the black aids a little because black is darnkness and implies mystery, we don't expect to see anything, but we still search for it. After all, the lines are all telling us to look that way. But, the white makes us think of light. We think we can still see what is out there, so we keep looking. You can redirect that attention by cropping closer to the top of the guitar and tell us to stop looking, we found it.

Let me know if you think I am full of crap. :)
Adam
October 26th, 2014
@pistonbroke @egad @archielogical @homeschoolmom @adambralston thanks yall. The General consensus told me what I was feeling about it. I may give it another go soon. He's got 8 more guitars so there's a surplus I can play around with. I'll definitely be referencing all of your comments next go around.
And @padlock I want to say it's a Jackson, and it's a v. Don't ask me much beyond that, i have no idea. I like listening to it and taking photos of it but he's the musically creative one :)
October 26th, 2014
Hi Angela, your Exif data shows...

Exposure: 1/50
Aperture: f/2.5
ISO Speed: 6400
File Size: 14.94 MB
Image Width: 3152 px
Image Height: 5080 px


1. Image degradation via resampling

To allow the site to host so many thousands of images, those uploaded that are "over-sized" are downsized automatically. Your original is 5080 pixels x 3152 pixels @ 14.94 MB. Your 'view enlarged' image has been downsized to 636 x 1024 pixels @ 1915 kb

_______________________________________

There is a discussion from Frank Hymus @frankhymus that you might find helpful : http://365project.org/discuss/general/16083/best-size-to-upload-to-365.

The bottom line, any "large" file over 1028 pixels on the long edge is going to be resampled and sharpened and sharpened and more for Internet/PC monitor display by the 365 infrastructure. This can lead to all sorts of unwanted loss clarity of color and final sharpening. Take control, resample yourself to less than 2,000 pixels on the long side, then do any final sharpening and clarity and then upload. The final result on 365 will be under your control. Uploading multi-megabit files accomplishes nothing, and indeed can hurt the final PC/Internet final display.

This is, of course, little to do with the JPEG compression you choose which does effect "file size," although there is an indirect relationship, of course. More pixels, and at the same compression, will get you bigger files. \
_____________________________________________

So......your original image, when viewed on your computer will look much better than the uploaded one for these reasons, and image artefacts have been introduced from the web resampling. I resize prior to upload (with the bonus that it is also so much quicker to upload a 1 MB file than a 6 MB file !!)

2. Composition & exposure
I agree with @adambralston & all of above re compositon, there is a lot going on - what is the thing that made you want to shoot this shot? what one area is the one that appeals to you the most? have that your priority when selecting lighting, composition and editing. At the moment the eye does tend to wander to the highlights at the top, the curves, the strings & the other shapes etc..rather than the delightful patina & mechanism.. yep ..you might have to get him to dust 'em too :-D

Composition also impacts your exposure choices. Looking at your exif data, I wondered if you used automatic ISO, or chose ISO 6400 to deliberately blow out the top? f2.5 gives the desired DOF and lets in plenty of light. Have you applied an automatic exposure correction at all? ( in post-editing or in-camera to the JPG?) Perhaps use a tripod/rest and drop the iso and slow the shutterspeed - this might capture more detail in the blown out highlight areas - ( http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-read-and-use-histograms/)
? re position of your light sources?

Welcome to 365 Angela, I hope there is something in my thoughts that might be helpful, Lyn.
November 3rd, 2014
There's probably nothing I can add that hasn't already been said, but I'll give you my thoughts anyways.

To me, the fact that guitar strings are silver, and the background is white makes them blend in due to the shallow depth of field. Since I'm assuming you can't control the background color, the easiest fix I can think of would be to widen up the depth of field a bit to bring out more of the detail in the strings. Just keep in mind that eyes are generally drawn to bright spots in images.

I do agree that maybe the straight up and down nature of the composition doesn't work as well as it could - this breaks the rule of threes, and while rules are meant to be broken, it might be more interesting for this to follow it due to the natural leading lines the strings and neck give you.

I look forward to seeing more of your stuff though! :)
November 30th, 2014
I would like the sharp point closer to the camera, and a little more depth of field.

Agree about the background, about the distractions to the left, right & bottom, and I would like the neck of the guitar either right up the middle of the photo, or definitely slanting. Here I don't know if it's deliberate or accidental it leans slightly to the right.
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