Week 6 - Landscape & Critique

Here's a tried and true way to think about any art when you want to critique it. Ask and answer these questions:

• What are the artist's intentions?
• What is the process (were there any "happy" mistakes that changed the intention?)
• What is the most successful element of the piece?
• What would you change if you could?

This week I ask you to critique 6 images on the Discussion Board. One way to view them and think about them is through  the lens of Composition. Another way is to combine the Composition vocabulary with the Critique Format above. Here's an example, a critique I wrote of this winter photo which I took a few years ago:

Winter Ice Storm, © Lisa Brooks, 2008

My intention was to capture a sparkling icy day in New England and capture the brilliant colors I saw. I took into consideration Rule of Thirds and Framing as I composed this image. The horizon bisects the bottom third of the image leaving 2/3s for sky. This gives a sense of airiness to this simple winter day. The bright red barn in the Rule of Thirds bottom right position draws the eye into the photo. The vertical tree trunks draw the eye up into the sky to roll around in the clouds and travel back down to the textured foreground. I think the bright contrast of red and blue, although not totally complementary colors, works to add visual pop to the photo. If I was going to change anything it might be to shoot from a slightly different angle to have the road on more of a diagonal and thus give more movement to this image, although the calm of the horizontal road is not totally displeasing.

Week 5 - Framing

Some examples of Rule of Thirds and Framing from recent shots. I tried to find a variety of examples: landscape, people, wildlife. Some include both elements, can you tell which ones? I used Picasa for this slideshow. The small one on the right "these feet are made for walking" was made in Animoto.

Week 3 - Macro

This collage of macro nature shots I've taken was made at Photovisi.com. I chose to take a screenshot of the collage on their site rather than download it with the watermark. I like this program because I can size the images, move them, and rotate as I want. The downside is the corny backgrounds to choose from, I kept it simple.

Week 2

The Everglades is home to some pretty strange species of flora and fauna. We were walking through the Fakahatchee Strand State Park a while ago and came across this strange specimen. This is two different plants, an Oak tree and a Strangler Fig. The fig is an invasive plant to FL although other species like the Banyan tree are related to it.  In your comment on this blog for this week talk about the composition of this photo, meaning its the point-of-view, and comment on how a different p-o-v might have made a different type of photo.

Week 1

This week you'll be creating your own photo blogs for CCV's online Digital Photography I. This blog is an example of what yours will look like. Each week please title your blog comment with the week #, this makes it easier for everyone to know which post to read.


This week I'd like you to experiment with posting a comment to a blog, so click on "comment" below this post and add your two cents.  Use your imagination and share your ideas about this photo. Is there a story this picture conveys?

photo by Lisa Brooks