alistairfarrugia

I think this is a good composition with the exception of that grey cloud bang in the middle of your sky. Was it windy? If so, you should have waited a bit for the sky to look a bit nicer (without low-grey, voluminous clouds that is). Compare that grey cloud with the white clouds in the far background, and you'll better understand what I mean. Other than that it's a very nice picture.

Locally we get to see fields with hay rolled up like that as well and I've been wanting to shoot a similar shot ever since I bought my DSLR. It's another shot on my checklist.

This picture manages to put across the sense of vibrancy in the area, with so much going on in such a small area, and the angle chosen is very effective at helping put this message across - you managed to capture a good number of interactions and that adds character to the image.

What I don't understand is the use of colour selection - what does this add to the photo, artistically speaking? I find that it "forces" the eye to move from one area of the picture to the other based on where the yellow "hotspots" are, rather than based on the activities being carried out. I would have preferred a totally black & white picture in this case. For instance, there's a lady with a yellow top showing very brightly - what's the benefit of singling this person out? Another thing I noticed is where there are the peppers showing - having some grey ones and some yellow ones looks unnatural given the nice contrast usually created by red and green peppers in photos.

Finally, I would slightly rotate to the right to ensure the building's line (above Candy Cake signage) is 180-degrees and parallel to the photo's edge, not at an angle.

The picture does a good job in conveying a sense of impending stormy weather, however I think the composition would have been better had you only focused on one element of wave-spray (what to call it?) rather than have two "competing for space" in the picture.

Also, I think I would have taken the picture slightly less zoomed in or from further back, to show against what that wave had crashed. If that was a small rock or a hard edge, it would have also helped you better compose the picture.

As regards the colours reproduced in the picture, are these faithful to what you had seen? Was the sea that murky in colour or do you remember it more blue? Not sure how to tell whether there's a colour cast in the picture, I'll leave it to those more pro than me to judge on that.

Finally, slightly more detail in the shadows (clouds) would help give more volume to the sky portion of the picture, and introduce a greater sense of depth, given that the sea is almost devoid of details / perspective elements.

I'll start off from the premise that I'm not an expert and only just started in photography. However some things I noticed are worth pointing out I believe. First of all, notice that blurred outline in blue and yellow of what seems like a broom to me? That should go...edit it out. It's two bright colours in an otherwise good background...that's not ideal.

Secondly, the black space under the chin can be edited to look lighter and give the impression that the beige wall continues.

Another thing, which may be more of a personal opinion here, is that the hand entering from the left is not really good composition technique. At least show the person's face as well to create a connection between the make up artist and the bride.

Finally, and this comes from my award winning tutor's lessons, not me...ideally, both eyes of the subject should be visible and the nose should not extend beyond the cheeks for this precise reason.

I hope you don't take this harsh criticism negatively. After all this is what the critique gallery is for. Regardless of what I pointed out, I think the picture still conveys the excited mood of the bride pretty effectively. Good luck for your next photos!

I think the composition could have improved had you located the ladybug slightly off-center. Also, could you have zoomed in more to allocate more space to the insect rather than the leaves? I think the picture would improve had you done so. I particularly think that the flower on the right hand side of the picture detracts attention from your subject and should be cropped out.

I think 1 and 4 are the best - you should show more of the subject given that the web is a pretty standard spider web with nothing striking or different, (more spider, less web). That leaves us with 1 and 4 therefore...

I think 4 looks slightly sharper and in macro shots I believe higher sharpness always leads to a better result, particularly a shot where depth of field wasn't a critical component (being from top view, not frontal). Had the picture been taken from the front, depth of field in the image would be more important, but being from the top, all of the spider has to be sharp, including the web underneath it to give the spider some context.

So my suggestion is to present picture 4 if you had to pick one.