Tell me what you see ... what you like ... what you don't like ... but I forbid you to leave me a two word response! Forbid it! Yes, I'm stomping up and down.

Please be specific.

I'm taking a holiday and so I'm going to bug ya'll for at least a day. I finally finished my March Zine. If you like photography, you'll love the image (hate the story) of Tom Cat and the Fireman.

I really didn't think I was so up to writing again but a full article fell out anyway when I started writing a blurb about Web 2.0 ... I know a lot of ya'll are considering your online marketing options and design is always a strong interest with this group. There's a list of resources with the article. Oh it's called

anyway ... ya'll give me more than a few words on this pic, please please. I need the sanity check (for both the good and the bad) ... need it, I tell you.

have fun,
pamElise #421627

Melissa #2613458

Regards,

Willard

#2613512

Thanks for you input. If a photographer has brought their own image into critique it is always appropriate to comment on anything you see that you find distracting.

The soft focus is exactly one of the things that bothers me ... most of the time. then some of the time the image can look much clearer. I think it has something to do with the ambient lighting ... but the focus is soft.

Willard,

See, to me ... it has tons of life ... they actually represent my life. And the right side of the image can't leave because it is a glimpse at the rest of the story. But a body would have to read the ditty to know that ... and that's why I didn't post it immediately with the photo. I think what a person writes about a photo completely changes a photo.

There is no re-do op. I am now 1000's of miles from them ... and when I took the pic I actually wasn't trying for anything ... I just saw them sitting there and snapped a snapshot. It was a low res shot in low light, just fer grins.

So there ya have it. Ya'll have just confirmed all my worst fears. I'm far from them. Far from 99% of my family. And wishing I'd understood four years ago what an impact they'd have on me when I would go browsing through my photo collection. Lesson learned.

Sigh ... oh well ... at least I can see they're my grandmother's geese well enough to enjoy the memories.

have fun,
pamElise #2616192

Oh and the geese are lined up as they are because they are one little china piece ... probably from china ... my Grandmother collected items that were made in China. They live at my mom's house now. ... and now I am so curious to know what is on the shelf with them because my mother's house is completely set up in little sets of collectibles that immediately tell an iconic story. Hmmm maybe when I go back in May, I will actually go visit my parents house.

have fun,
pamElise #2616584

Oh thanks for the nice comments of my photo of "granny's gerberas live on"..
it's sort of like this photo in that I shot it a while back...it always will mean something to me but I would probably do something different now...
now there are things in the photo I would do differenty just because I think my whole concept of what makes a good photo has changed (for the better I hope!!) maybe I should try to reshoot it sometime.....anyway thanks a million......keep up with the photography......Tori... #2622083

Tori, You know there was this lady who took a photo of her grandmother's christmas tree ornament ... and several of us encouraged her to reshoot it ... was that by chance you? You sound like it should be you.

When I first started playing with the camera, I thought I wanted to move to a point of mmm mastery and stop learning and just know how to shoot the shot. But now ... now that i've started moving toward mastery, the more I find that the joy is in the experiment rather than the solution. Does that make a drop of sense?

Basically it's the old reaching the top of one mountain just makes one curious to know what's at the top of the next mountain. Reaching a small amount of mastery just makes me curious to find out about ... "well ... what if I ... compose, focus, stand, light, crop ... just even the slightest bit differently?"

What amazes me is that each one of you has picked out the exact elements that have caused me to squint my eyes at this image and suspect that I love the subject more than I love the image. ... the very reason I needed the sanity check.

For example, Mike, the shadows ... I keep going back and forth ... one day I like them and the next i'm not so sure ... and just yesterday I got to take a quick peek in and saw that no one had mentioned them ... and I thought mmm well

so ... ya'll tell me what you think about this ... this is the conclusion i've come to ... Keep in mind that I have to work the image into basically a 2:1 ratio of width to height.

The main elements need to be the bookshelf and the geese ... because each has a history that as far as I can remember has always co-existed.

instead of a side view ... more of a front angle view ... so that I capture the ducks more face-on. ... in my mind that should also provide me the top shelf, bottom shelf, corner (for depth) and the graceful side edge of the bookshelf ... really it's more of a curio shelf unit thingy.

Then of course, this time, i'll have my tripod ... AND I WILL have a camera that has a very nice set of manual controls so I will control the aperture so that the ducks are in focus and if I keep the shadows they will be in very soft focus ... this will also take care of any type of extra background that might show up in the curve of the shelf unit.

Also English Ivy abounds at my mother's house ... which also came from my grandmother's house ... so ... I will drape some down ... a few twigs from the shelf above.

Ideas?

thanks!

enjoy, have fun,
pamElise #2626260

have a nice week........Tori #2626308