Photography Classes Online – Icon Photography School › Forums › Photography Lessons › Lesson 1 › Donkey
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Duncan Rawlinson.
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September 1, 2008 at 6:03 am #17443
gabriel
ParticipantHello,
This is my first time here… after reading my first assignment i found this little statue of Donkey, its been laying there with hardly anyone noticing its existence anymore. Therefore i tried to show donkey’s true character which is funny and goofey, ofcourse the background behind him portrays basically a farm. please adviceSeptember 3, 2008 at 7:08 pm #18834Duncan Rawlinson
KeymasterWhat a great photograph. It’s very enjoyable to explore from both an artistic and technical standpoint. Let me begin by pointing out many of the positive elements of your photograph.
For starters, your technical composition is great. You’ve used a very shallow depth of field to isolate the look on the donkey’s face. However, you’ve kept enough of the background to provide context. The overall farm look helps add to the overall thematic plot of the photograph.
Secondly, you’ve used color simplicity as a means to help you organize your photograph. You will learn more about color organization and theory in and upcoming lecture but this photograph does a great job of using analogous colors to create a harmonious look between the different layers of your photograph.
It seems as though your camera is very high quality. It picked up the lighting in this photograph beautifully. The colors and textures are very crisp and I like that a lot. That being said, I do have two things that I think you should take into consideration.
For starters, in your close up photograph you’ve used a shallow depth of field to blur the background. In fact, it’s so shallow that even part of your main subject is blurred. This looks great, but I can’t find the most focused area of the photograph. When I enlarge the photograph and look at the donkey’s face, most of his face is slightly blurred. This is either because there was slight camera shake or because your depth of field was too shallow and you missed the precise area that should be in focus (the face or the eyes). It’s not noticeable when the photograph isn’t enlarged, but as soon as you enlarge the photograph it becomes noticeable. It’s a small error, but it will make a world of difference if you could get at least 1 area of the main object perfectly in focus.
Secondly, your composition is very good, but you’ve “amputated” a few objects around your character and even your character himself. You’ve cut off part of his leg with the bottom wall of the photograph and his tail with the right wall of your photograph. Amputation can’t always be avoided but you need to control it where possible and always be thinking about the edges of your photograph and not just the center. A lot of the mistakes that photographers make happen around the 4 walls of the photograph, not in the center. So that is something else you should be aware of.
But other than that, I think you’ve done a wonderful job on this assignment. It’s just a matter of keeping an eye on the small details. Those little details are how you push a photograph from good to great!
I look forward to seeing your next assignment.
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