Lesson 9

[amelia]

Here is my attempt.

[Duncan Rawlinson]

Great shot. You’re really showing huge improvements and arguably more importantly, a great understanding of the concepts discussed in the lecture notes. This shot is incredible for various reasons. Allow me to highlight some of the major features of this photograph.

For starters, this assignment asked for a wide tonal range. This is a difficult challenge because it’s hard to find a wide tonal range in our day to day lives. Even if tonal range does exist within a scene, it’s often not close enough to capture within the 4 walls of a photograph. However, you’ve managed to capture bright whites and dark blacks. This has resulted in a dramatic and beautiful photograph.

The composition of the shot is also very well done. You’ve used the rule of thirds and you’ve used a shallow depth of field to help isolate your main object. Not only that, but you’ve managed to slightly blur both of your foreground and you background, allowing only your mid-ground to be in sharp focus. The result is a dreamlike quality to this photograph. You’ve very successfully used all of the layers in your photograph and it really helps advance the artistic look of this picture. It’s a complicated shot, with lots of secondary objects, but you’ve effectively organized chaos into an organized shot. Good job.

The lighting of this photograph is also spectacular and helps enhance the look of the texture in the leaves. I am particularly drawn to the dark leaves near the bottom left of the photograph. I can really see the texture in those leaves. It looks as though you may have slightly increased in the contrast in post-production or slightly underexposed the photograph to get that effect. Either way, it’s beautiful.

My only recommendation when taking shots like this is to try and have a clear idea on to what the more crisp element of your photograph is gin to be. I think the center of this photograph is the main are of interest. However, when I enlarge the photograph I can see that the center of the photograph is slightly blurred. I don’t know if this is due to camera shake or your shallow depth of field. This is hard to correct because your viewfinder doesn’t allow you to see the crispness in the small window. You’ll need to make mistakes like this over and over again until you understand how to measure the exact distance to your center of interest. It’s a gamer of precision and it takes a long time to master. It’s not noticeable unless the image is enlarged. But at some point you’ll want to start enlarging your images to show off. When you do this your precision will be of paramount importance.

Great job!

[Author]

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