Okay, I know we are supposed to be objective when critiquing, but subjectively speaking...cute dog!!! Back to objective...I believe the focus is on the eye, which captures a reflection of the wooden part of the window and maybe a small amount of catch lights. There seems to be slight barrel distortion in reference to the mouth and nose area (perhaps object is withing the minimal facal range). I think this because the nose appears slightly larger in proportion to what we see of the rest of the dog. I am not so sure on the depth of field. I would guess around 5 or 5.6 as the parts in focus have texture, but the fur around the head is not clear and rather blurred. I think there would have been more clearly defined texture had there been a smaller depth of field???? - Okay, obviously I am an amateur or less than amateur critiquer. The picture is softly saturate with a warm colour balance. That said, there is contrast in the picture from the eyes and nose areas. Slightly side lit, or just lit from a window that doesn't directly have the light hitting it at this moment. The weight of the picture is to the right. The dog takes up 2/3rds vertical space of the picture. Horizontally speaking, the window cuts the picture in 2 and may be slightly distracting to some. I find that it draws my eyes to the dogs eyes. There is a shadow in the bottom right corner that makes me wonder what it is - it is there, but my eyes are not distracted by it.If I were to attempt this picture, I might try to change my perspective and angle to try and use the open window to frame the face of the dog. I would also move back to get out of mimimum focussing distance (if I am correct on this point), and perhaps decrease the depth of field (again, if I am right on this) to try and add a bit more texture to the picture from the fur. That said, I do like the soft outline. As it looks like the picture may have been metered to help diffuse the background, I think I would try to duplicate as I like this look.
Well, that's it. I'm probably okay on some points, but may be totally wrong on others. Please let me know...don't be scared to critique or be critical of my observations as I would like to know where my judgement is erring. I would also like to know other opinions on what they would do if they were going to change this picture at all. Personally, if asked, I would still say I love this picture (and it's not even my dog) - yes, I know, this is a "critical" comment- I just couldn't help myself! Lovin' life! Stacey
Nice first attempt, Stacey! I'll give you a bit of feedback here, because it's what I do lol. You were right to touch on DOF, but your guesstimate of f5.6 is rather high. I know aperture/DOF is tricky to describe because the numbers and the explanations seem to work in the wrong directions, but let's see if we can clear that up. When you have a small aperture number/large opening, the depth of field will be very shallow, leaving most parts in the foreground and/or background in bokek. f1.4 = aperture wide open = lots of foreground and background OUT OF focus = shallow DOF. f22.0 = aperture very small = lots of foreground and background IN focus = deep DOF.
ReplyDeleteIn this case you are correct in noting that it's possible that either a) the depth of field was too shallow OR b) the dog's nose was inside the minimum focussing distance. Either assumption might be correct. If you wanted to capture the dog's fur in his whole face, you could correct that by either standing further back in the case of being inside minimum focussing distance, or by increasing the aperture number/making the aperture stop down to a 5.6 or 8.0 or whatever.
You are correct that the quality of the lighting isn't directional - by looking at this picture it seems very evenly lit because there are few shadows apparent. The lighting is diffused, probably because it was an overcast day or there was some other sort of bright but indirect light. When you look at the qualities of lighting, it behaves very predictably. If it had been a bright sunny day, the dog would have had a definite light and dark side; if it was backlit, the background would have been completely whited out.
The only thing that was way off was the idea of any barrel distortion. Because you are unfamiliar with the dog, knowing if the snout was insanely huge compared to the rest of the dog would not have been where to look for a clue. There are two lines cutting through the image from the window - had there been barrel distortion, these lines would have bowed, appearing quite curved. If you look closely, the lines aren't parallel, but they aren't c-shaped either.
I'm also glad you noted the difference between objective deconstruction and your personal opinions. For whatever it's worth, this isn't my favourite picture of Art, but it's my dog so I love all pictures of him anyways...